Education
BBC History UK
Swings and Roundabouts
We all have childhood memories of playgrounds. But what does the evolution of outdoor play in Britain tell us about the experience of being young over the past 200 years? Jon Winder serves up a history of sandpits, bombsites and battles with cars
9 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Nation-building
This provocative book challenges established interpretations, conceptualisations and evaluations surrounding the birth of the modern Greek nation-state in 1830.
1 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Mother tongue
The title of Laura Spinney's lively, well-illustrated book refers to Proto-Indo-European (PIE).
1 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
"Freedom and democracy are not to be taken for granted"
To celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day, on 5 May prime minister SIR KEIR STARMER hosted a tea party in Downing Street for Second World War veterans, schoolchildren and people with links to the armed forces. Following the event, he spoke to our correspondent York Membery about why marking the anniversary is so important - and the resonances with the current war in Ukraine
4 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
ELIZABETH I'S FORBIDDEN LOVE
In 1579, the queen embarked on a romance with a French duke she affectionately dubbed her “frog”. The pair seemed destined for marriage. Yet, writes Elizabeth Tunstall, the people of England had other ideas...
8 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Beach warriors
SAUL DAVID is enthralled by a detailed account of the Allied assault on Sword beach during the pivotal landings of June 1944
2 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Sarah Mae Flemming Segregation-busting bus commuter
The year before the arrest of Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery bus boycott, another black American woman started a legal fight against segregation on public transport. CLIVE WEBB and TOM ADAM DAVIES highlight her role in the civil rights battle
6 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Shaping Shakespear
ANDY KESSON welcomes a bold look at an early English playhouse and its crucial role in moulding the playwright's dramatic imagination
2 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
CAESAR'S FUNERAL DRAMA
The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC drove tensions sky-high in ancient Rome. As Jessica Clarke reveals, plays staged at his funeral were carefully chosen to inflame anger and incite revenge on his killers
8 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Place names are signposts to the past. And how revealing they are
I WAS RECENTLY BACK IN DEVON. LONG AGO, ON childhood holidays from the industrial north, this seemed to me the ‘real’ England.
3 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
"The pope doesn't have to be a great theologian - but he has to be in tune with the zeitgeist"
In May, the new Pope Leo XIV was chosen by the conclave, a secretive gathering of cardinals with a history stretching back many centuries. Matt Elton spoke to REBECCA RIST about the politics, controversies and far-reaching impacts of past papal elections
6 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
You can book a one-on-one encounter with an Egyptian shoe
MUSEUMS ARE MAGICAL PLACES. THEY ARE the keepers of so many histories and stories from near and far.
2 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Fatal floods rage through central Europe
Surging floodwaters sweep away entire villages across German-speaking lands
3 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
CHANNEL SICKNESS
When the Battle of Britain erupted, many Luftwaffe pilots anticipated a swift victory. Yet soon that confidence had been replaced by chronic fatigue and a crippling fear of drowning in “dirty water”. Victoria Taylor charts the mental disintegration of Hitler's flyers
10+ min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
FIVE THINGS YOU (PROBABLY) DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT. . .the First World War
Alex Churchill reveals some little-known facts about one of history's deadliest conflicts
3 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Sydney in five places
Australia's largest and oldest city was founded on land used for tens of millennia by indigenous peoples. LAILA ELLMOOS explores five sites revealing its long history
3 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Billie Holiday 1915-59
When did you first hear about Holiday?
2 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Ancient olive relish
ELEANOR BARNETT explores the long culinary history and cultural impact of the toothsome fruit of the ‘queen of all trees’
2 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Pétain goes on trial for treason
The ‘Lion of Verdun’ finds himself in the dock in Paris, faced with accusations of Nazi collaboration
1 min |
July 2025
BBC History UK
Painting on the precipice
Hans Holbein’s masterwork The Ambassadors is an exquisite portrait of two 16th-century diplomats. But it is also crammed with symbols and hidden messages. Tracy Borman deciphers the clues that betray the turbulence of a fateful year
7 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
A doctrine of self-control
FERN RIDDELL gives a cautious welcome to an exploration of American attitudes down the years towards both sex work and female sex workers
2 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
Samba schools used the carnival to foreground overlooked histories
I WAS RECENTLY IN RIO DE JANEIRO, IN A warehouse on the outskirts of the city, admiring some of the brightly coloured floats that had featured in this year's world-famous carnival. Each spring, just before the start of Lent, hundreds of thousands of people attend the parades in the city's Sambadrome stadium and enjoy watching the floats.
2 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
Victorian jelly
ELEANOR BARNETT explores the surprisingly long history of quivering, colourful dessert popular with children
3 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
Diplomatic mission
RICHARD TOYE salutes an exploration of the relationship between the ‘Big Three’ Allied leaders
2 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
Who says what and why they say it
DAVID RUNCIMAN is impressed by an exploration of how arguments over free speech are often rooted in a desire to close down dialogue
4 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
"Africans have been starved of historical figures from their own lands that they can look up to"
PAULA AKPAN speaks to Danny Bird about powerful African woman leaders and the complexities of interrogating historical narratives, colonial biases and these women's own flaws
10 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
Harry Price
Harry Price was a British ghost-hunter, psychic researcher and author who achieved fame through his investigations into paranormal phenomena and for exposing fraudulent mediums.
2 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
Few works of 20th-century art have such a distinguished list of past owners
A POSTWAR BABY BOOMER AND A LATE SIXTIES student, in my adult life I naturally grew up optimistic. I believed in progress.
3 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
The feel of truth
JOSEPH E USCINSKI enjoys an account of a fake report that supposedly exposed a huge conspiracy to wage war in support of the American economy
2 min |
June 2025
BBC History UK
Spiked drinks, counterfeit coins and the lodgers from hell
Drugging, fraud, even murder – women couldn't really commit such heinous crimes, could they? Rosalind Crone explores five audacious female-led felonies from the 18th and 19th centuries
8 min |