BBC History UK
FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM
The civil rights movement saw hundreds of thousands of Americans rallying to the cause of racial equality. Rhiannon Davies has spoken to several historians of the campaign for a new podcast series. Here she revisits five key moments in the struggle
10+ min |
August 2023
BBC History UK
Why we're still living in the age of the witch hunt
The gruesome mass executions of the early modern era may have abated, but that doesn't mean the persecution of so-called witches has come to an end
10 min |
August 2023
BBC History UK
City on the brink of battle
Hidden away in an unassuming shopping centre lies a doorway to the distant past. EMILY BRIFFETT steps back in time to discover the contested world of Anglo-Saxon Winchester
2 min |
August 2023
BBC History UK
America rediscovered
CAROLINE DODDS PENNOCK acclaims an insightful exploration of the history of North America's Indigenous peoples since the era of European colonisation
2 min |
August 2023
BBC History UK
THE GREATEST PHARAOH?
Ramesses II was a genius in the art of self-promotion. Epic palaces, jaw-dropping temples and sycophantic scribes all projected his brilliance. But, asks Toby Wilkinson, do the achievements of Egypt’s ‘king of kings’ truly justify the hype?
10+ min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
The children's war on slavery
They boycotted sugar, signed petitions and played abolitionist board games. Ryan Hanley and Kathryn Gleadle introduce the young people who took a stand against the slave trade in Georgian Britain
9 min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
The forgotten history of Windrush
The famous voyage of the Empire Windrush from Jamaica to Britain 75 years ago was the product of a tumultuous century in Britain's relationship with the Caribbean. Christienna Fryar reveals how a region was transformed following emancipation
9 min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
"These men are a key part of our story. Their portrait should be seen"
WHEN THE RENOWNED ANGLO-HUNGARIAN painter Philip de László died in 1937, an unusual double portrait was found in his private collection
3 min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
"Caroline was besotted with Byron. But, ungrateful love rat that he was, he set off chasing others"
LADY ANTONIA FRASER talks to Ellie Cawthorne about her biography of Caroline Lamb, the rule-breaking aristocrat whose affair with the great romantic poet scandalised Georgian society
7 min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
Tale of the centuries
JOANN FLETCHER is engaged but occasionally frustrated by the third volume of a study of dynastic Egypt’s dramatic past
4 min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
THE ORIGINAL ROGUE HEROES
It's a story of extravagant lies, homemade bombs and adrenaline-pumped commandos. Joshua Levine charts the formative years of the SAS through the exploits of four extraordinary servicemen
10+ min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
"Putin's misreading of history is a major contributing factor in how this war has progressed"
As the war in Ukraine continues to rage, with losses mounting ever higher on both sides, Matt Elton speaks to SERHII PLOKHY about his new book exploring the conflict’s historical origins and their consequences
4 min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
"The coronation felt like a watershed in our relationship with the crown"
SO THE CORONATION IS OVER, AND WE ENTER a new era for the monarchy and the nation
3 min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
"Diseases such as smallpox were hugely contagious and apocalyptically terrifying"
For centuries, scientists have striven to combat a whole host of infectious diseases. Yet, as Simon Schama explains in his new book, they have often met with considerable opposition
10+ min |
July 2023
BBC History UK
"Henry was not a great king but he was respected as a most Christian one"
David Carpenter talks to David Musgrove about the second part of his biography of King Henry II, and the extraordinary revolution that removed him from power in 1258
10+ min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
The queen who wouldn't go quietly
Margaret of Anjou was a foreigner and a woman. Those facts alone should have sunk her bid to regain the English throne for her husband, Henry VI. Yet, writes Joanna Arman, when it came to fighting her family’s corner, Margaret simply didn’t know when she was beaten
9 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
WHEN GERMS MADE HISTORY
Infectious diseases don't just make individuals sick - they can cause seismic shifts in societies. Jonathan Kennedy charts six moments when pathogens such as plague, smallpox and malaria played key roles in major cultural, political and economic transformations
9 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
Elizabeth I: mother's girl
The Virgin Queen lionised her father, Henry VIII, in public. Yet, writes Tracy Borman, examine what Elizabeth did as opposed to what she said and it’s evident that her sympathies lay with Anne Boleyn
10+ min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
Black masses, lethal potions and the plot to kill a king
In the 1670s, Louis XIV of France was the target of a series of assassination attempts involving poisons and necromancy. But who was the perpetrator? Josephine Wilkinson untangles a conspiracy that scandalised a nation
9 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
Hitler's forgotten victims
CHRISTINE SCHMIDT welcomes an important new book detailing the fraught search for justice by the Roma in the aftermath of their genocidal persecution by the Nazis
2 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
A European success story
PETER ANDERSON is impressed by a sweeping history of modern Spain, covering a century in which the country experienced both wartime tragedy and economic triumph
3 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
THE RACE TO THE TOP OF THE WORLD
On the 7Oth anniversary of the first ascent of Everest, Robin Ashcroft charts the trials, tragedies and triumphs that led to that pioneering climb and its implications for Britain's place on the world stage
10 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
How Britain stirred the cauldron of conflict in Palestine
Having ousted the Ottomans from Palestine in 1917, Britain administered a territory that was already a tinderbox of tensions between Arabs and Jews. Matthew Hughes explores the bloody end of the Palestine Mandate and the emergence of the State of Israel
10 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
Visions of England
MICHAEL WOOD enjoys a thought-provoking exploration of English identity from the postwar period to the present day and the myths that have been told about England
4 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
Should historians interpret the past through the prism of the present?
A recent debate about whether the study of history should address contemporary concerns exposed faultlines in academic approaches
5 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
"History - like any person's story - is messy. It doesn't fit into neat boxes"
EIGHTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD JAMES MEREDITH walks into Bully’s Soul Food Restaurant, a traditional eaterie in Jackson, Mississippi
3 min |
June 2023
BBC History UK
Masters of ceremonies
Henry III believed that spectacle elevated him into the sphere of the sacred. Elizabeth I used it to emphasise her Protestant credentials. And Queen Victoria turned it into a celebration of her imperial might. As King Charles III prepares for his coronation, ALICE HUNT reveals how generations of British monarchs have used pomp and pageantry to project power
10+ min |
May 2023
BBC History UK
Central intelligence
JONATHAN KWAN is swept along by a colourful and authoritative exploration of Europe's geographic heartland
2 min |
May 2023
BBC History UK
AN APPETITE FOR POWER
Wine, song and the finest food money could buy made medieval feasts a highlight of the courtly calendar. Yet more often than not, writes Charlotte Palmer, a thirst for influence and prestige lay behind the carousing
6 min |
May 2023
BBC History UK
Steppe changes
PETER HOMMEL is critical of some of the conclusions presented in a new study of the nomadic warriors of the central Eurasian steppe
2 min |