Education
BBC History UK
Rule like a Roman
James Osborne meets the makers of a new game that offers you the chance to govern a conquered settlement at the height of Rome's power
2 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
AIR RAIDS AND ARIAS
Glasgow, 1942. The Carl Rosa Opera Company was in town to perform Puccini's Madama Butterfly. Tickets had been snapped up by local people – including many who didn't really know what an opera was.
9 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
What lies beneath
Sea monsters have haunted human imaginations for millennia. From the Akraken to killer serpents, Prema Arasu explores what five mythical creatures reveal about our deepest fears
8 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
If walls could talk
Several major moments in English history played out at the Midlands' mightiest castle. SPENCER MIZEN explores the story-soaked stone walls, soaring towers and gloomy dungeons of the Kingmaker's lair
2 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
How did the teddy bear get its name?
Perhaps the question should be: would we have the beloved toy at all if a US president had enjoyed more luck on a hunting trip?
1 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
Eighty years on, it's time that these 3 million lives are remembered
KAVITA PURI on the first event commemorating the 1943 Bengal Famine.
2 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
Jane Austen was a brilliant observer of Georgian Britain But she couldn't speak for everyone
The author's books depict an evocative slice of early 19th-century life, but many aspects of the Regency era are only hinted at in her novels, as Lizzie Rogers reveals
10 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
Was Stonewall Jackson obsessed with lemons?
Confederate general Thomas J 'Stonewall' Jackson was arguably the most formidable commander of the American Civil War, defeating many numerically superior Union forces.
1 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
These are the last humans who have stayed outside ‘civilisation'
A NEW REPORT BY SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL, Uncontacted Peoples: At the Edge of Survival, is the latest accounting of the human story - and it is a historical document of unparalleled power. It reveals that at least 196 groups in the world are still uncontacted, most of them gravely threatened by logging, mining and drilling for oil. These are the last human beings who have stayed outside ‘civilisation’ since the violence of the West reached across the globe after 1492.
3 min |
Christmas 2025
BBC History UK
Hymn to life
Scripted by Alan Bennett and directed by Nicholas Hytner - a collaboration that produced The Madness of King George and The History Boys – The Choral is set in 1916.
1 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Helen Keller
It was when I was eight or nine years old, growing up in Canada, and I borrowed a book about her from my local library.
2 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Spain's miracle
The nation's transition from dictatorship to democracy in the late 1970s surely counts as one of modern Europe's most remarkable stories. On the 50th anniversary of General Franco's death, Paul Preston explores how pluralism arose from the ashes of tyranny
8 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Just how many Bayeux Tapestries were there?
As a new theory, put forward by Professor John Blair, questions whether the embroidery was unique, David Musgrove asks historians whether there could have been more than one 'Bayeux Tapestry'
7 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
In service of a dictator
HARRIET ALDRICH admires a thoughtful exploration of why ordinary Ugandans helped keep a monstrous leader in power despite his regime's horrific violence
2 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
The Book of Kells is a masterwork of medieval calligraphy and painting
THE BOOK OF KELLS, ONE OF THE GREATEST pieces of medieval art, is today displayed in the library of Trinity College Dublin.
3 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Passing interest
In his new book, Roger Luckhurst sets about the monumental task of chronicling the evolution of burial practices. In doing so, he does a wonderful job of exploring millennia of deathly debate, including the cultural meanings behind particular approaches.
1 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Is the advance of AI good or bad for history?
As artificial intelligence penetrates almost every aspect of our lives, six historians debate whether the opportunities it offers to the discipline outweigh the threats
8 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Beyond the mirage
All serious scholarship on ancient Sparta has to be conducted within the penumbra of the 'mirage Spartiate', a French term coined in 1933 to describe the problem posed by idealised accounts of Sparta.
1 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
He came, he saw... he crucified pirates
Ancient accounts of Julius Caesar's early life depict an all-action hero who outwitted tyrants and terrorised bandits. But can they be trusted? David S Potter investigates
10 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Everyone cried unashamedly at the news of this young pilot's death
IF YOU STROLL ACROSS THE GREEN SWATHE OF the Maidan in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) - past the monumental marble Victoria Memorial built to honour that Empress of India - and keep heading south, the city noise fades, and so too does the bustle.
2 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Margaret Beaufort Schemer or opportunist?
The mother of Henry VII is often characterised as a domineering woman who plotted her son's rise to the throne.
10 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
FIVE THINGS YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT. . the Tudors
Ruth Goodman, who teaches our new HistoryExtra Academy course on Tudor life, shares five insights about the dynasty's legacy
3 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
"Women are entirely excluded from nation-building, yet the ultimate emblem of the nation is a woman"
JANINA RAMIREZ speaks to Danny Bird about how women and their stories have been co-opted and curated by men attempting to forge nations across Europe
10 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
The Nazis' war of words
Hitler and his acolyte Joseph Goebbels wielded propaganda as a potent weapon in the battle for German hearts and minds. Lisa Pine shows how posters targeted all sectors of society to promote prejudice and bolster support for party policies
5 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Royals, radicals and rebels
DAVID ANDRESS assesses a detailed portrait of the political and personal interactions that fuelled the French Revolution – but is only partly convinced by the book's approach
4 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
A global crash
PATRICIA CLAVIN enjoys a fast-paced account of the brutal collapse of the American stock market in 1929, but misses the wider global context
2 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Myth world
JAMES OSBORNE joins a quest inspired by ancient Greek legends, traversing richly reimagined lands and meeting gods and spirits
1 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
The rightful king
I enjoyed reading the interesting article by Caitlin Ellis on the rivals for the throne in 1066 (October). In particular, it was fascinating to read about Edgar Ætheling's claim, which was surely the strongest, based on pure bloodline.
4 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
From sexual orgies to Satan incarnated as a snake, lurid depictions of 'voodoo' in North America long titillated and shocked readers. As David G Cox explains, they were also wielded as justifications for racist oppression during the social and political upheavals of the 19th-century US
On 2 January 1893, the black American abolitionist and reformer Frederick Douglass delivered a lecture on Haiti to an audience in Chicago.
8 min |
December 2025
BBC History UK
Elizabethan pear conserve
ELEANOR BARNETT cooks up a colourful, sweet fruit dessert cherished by Tudor folk during the cold days of winter
2 min |