HistoryHistorical narrative
One Small Step
In July 1969, three men rode a giant rocket towards the Moon. With alarms sounding and fuel running low, two of them flew a fragile craft down to its grey surface, while the world held its breath.
History's Turning Points
Historical events told through the decisions, challenges and consequences that shaped them.
For students and lifelong learners · 11 stories
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Great Charter
In June 1215, in a riverside meadow in England, an unpopular king was forced to accept a list of promises. It failed within weeks, yet its ideas have outlived every king since.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The King Who Chose Peace
More than two thousand years ago, the most powerful ruler in India won a terrible war, and then did something almost no conqueror has ever done. He had his sorrow carved into stone for everyone to read.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Milkmaid and the Cure
Country people in England said that milkmaids never caught smallpox. In 1796, a village doctor decided to find out whether they were right, and began the story of vaccines.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Stone That Spoke
For fourteen hundred years, nobody on Earth could read the writing of ancient Egypt. Then soldiers digging near the Nile found a broken slab of dark stone, and a young Frenchman made it speak.
HistoryHistorical narrative
A Handful of Salt
In 1930, Mahatma Gandhi set out on foot to walk 385 kilometres to the sea, to break an unjust law by picking up salt. The whole world watched.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Night the Wall Opened
For 28 years, a wall divided Berlin. On 9 November 1989, a confused answer at a press conference sent thousands of people to the border, and history changed overnight.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Press That Changed the World
Around 1450, in the German city of Mainz, a goldsmith named Johannes Gutenberg found a way to print books quickly. Within fifty years, Europe was transformed.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Mould That Saved Millions
In 1928, Alexander Fleming came back from holiday to find mould growing on a dish of bacteria. It took another twelve years, and a team in Oxford, to turn his discovery into a medicine.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Seat on the Bus
On 1 December 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat. Her quiet "no" sparked a year-long boycott that helped change America.
HistoryHistorical narrative
The Mission That Came Home
In April 1970, an explosion left three astronauts nearly 200,000 miles from Earth in a damaged spacecraft. What followed was one of the greatest problem-solving efforts in history.