History
31 articles
History
Boudicca's Revolt: The British Queen Who Nearly Drove Rome From Britain
In 60 AD the queen of the Iceni led the most serious challenge to Roman rule in Britain's history, destroying …
History
King Alfred the Great: The Viking Wars and the Making of England
Alfred of Wessex faced the complete conquest of England by the Vikings, saved his kingdom from the marshes of …
History
Britain's Railways: How the Iron Road Transformed a Nation 1825-1900
From Stephenson's Rocket to the great Victorian termini, the railway age transformed how Britons travelled, th…
History
Roman Britain: How Rome Ruled Britannia for Nearly 400 Years
From Julius Caesar's first landings in 55 BC to the withdrawal of the legions in 410 AD, Rome left an indelibl…
History
Stonehenge: Britain's Greatest Prehistoric Mystery and What We Now Know
For 4,500 years Stonehenge has stood on Salisbury Plain. Modern archaeology has transformed our understanding …
History
The Battle of Hastings: What Really Happened on That October Day in 1066
The most consequential battle in English history unfolded over nine hours on a Sussex hillside — but the outco…
History
The Battle of Waterloo 1815: Napoleon's Defeat and Britain's Century of Supremacy
On 18 June 1815, the Duke of Wellington and his allied forces broke Napoleon's Grande Armée and ended twenty y…
History
The Black Death in Britain: How the Plague of 1348 Killed Half the Population
Arriving at the port of Melcombe Regis in June 1348, the bubonic plague swept through England, Wales and Scotl…
History
The British Empire: Rise, Reach and the Reckoning With Its Legacy
At its peak in 1920, the British Empire covered a quarter of the world's land surface and governed a quarter o…
History
The British Trade Union Movement: From Tolpuddle to the General Strike
The history of British trade unionism — from the transportation of six Dorset farm labourers in 1834 to the ni…
History
The Chartist Movement: Britain's First Mass Democratic Campaign
Between 1838 and 1858, the Chartists mounted the most significant popular challenge to the British establishme…
History
The Dissolution of the Monasteries: How Henry VIII Dismantled Medieval England
Between 1536 and 1541 Henry VIII suppressed over 800 monasteries, priories and friaries, seizing their vast we…
History
The Duke of Wellington: Soldier, Politician and the Man Who Beat Napoleon
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was Britain's greatest military commander and a controversial politi…
History
The English Civil War: How Britain Executed a King and Invented Parliamentary Democracy
Between 1642 and 1651, England tore itself apart in a conflict that ended with the execution of Charles I and …
History
The First World War: Britain, the Somme and the Generation That Was Lost
Between 1914 and 1918, Britain mobilised four million soldiers and suffered 750,000 dead — a national trauma w…
History
The Glorious Revolution of 1688: How Britain Established Constitutional Monarchy
When Parliament invited William of Orange to replace James II, it settled forever the question of who held ult…
History
The Great Fire of London 1666: How the Capital Burned and Was Reborn
Over four days in September 1666, fire destroyed 13,200 houses and 87 churches — and gave Christopher Wren the…
History
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605: Treason, Torture and the Making of a National Memory
Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators came closer to destroying the English Parliament than most people reali…
History
The Industrial Revolution: How Britain Transformed the World Between 1760 and 1840
From the spinning jenny to the steam engine, Britain's factories and mines reshaped human civilisation — and c…
History
The Loss of the Mary Rose: Tudor England's Greatest Naval Disaster
In July 1545, one of Henry VIII's favourite warships sank before his eyes in the Solent — and lay on the seabe…
History
The Magna Carta of 1215: Birth of the Rule of Law in England
Forced upon King John at Runnymede by rebellious barons, the Great Charter established the revolutionary princ…
History
The NHS at 75: How Aneurin Bevan's Dream Transformed British Health
On 5 July 1948, the National Health Service opened its doors and gave every British person access to healthcar…
History
The Norman Conquest of 1066: How William the Conqueror Transformed England Forever
The Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066 ended Anglo-Saxon England and gave birth to a new nation shaped by N…
History
The Peasants' Revolt of 1381: England's First Great Popular Uprising
Led by Wat Tyler and inspired by the radical priest John Ball, the Peasants' Revolt challenged the entire soci…
History
The Reformation in England: How Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell Changed Religion Forever
The English Reformation was less about theology than about power — but its consequences for faith, culture and…
History
The Scottish Reformation and the Union of Crowns: How Scotland and England Came Together
The religious revolution of the sixteenth century and James VI's accession to the English throne in 1603 began…
History
The Second World War: Britain Alone, the Blitz and Churchill's Finest Hour
Between 1939 and 1945 Britain fought the most existential conflict in its history — standing alone against Naz…
History
The Slave Trade and Abolition: Britain's Darkest Commerce and Its End
For over 200 years Britain was the world's leading slave trader; understanding the movement that ended it is e…
History
The Suffragette Movement: How British Women Won the Vote
From Emily Davison's fatal dash onto the Epsom Derby racecourse to the Parliament Square hunger strikes, the c…
History
The Tudor Dynasty: From Bosworth Field to the Golden Age of Elizabeth I
The Tudors ruled England from 1485 to 1603 and transformed it through the Reformation, the break with Rome and…
History
The Victorian Age: How the Nineteenth Century Made Modern Britain
Queen Victoria's 63-year reign saw Britain industrialise, urbanise, expand its empire and create the social, p…