Modern cabaret and burlesque shows can trace their roots back to the taverns and coffee houses of 18th century London. Hear how they grew in popularity and made history.

Variety shows in London still continue today, often with venues with a single doorway leading out into the street. Some are steeped in history and others are making history today.

Making history today is Ivy Paige, international showgirl, singer and burlesque queen. Check out our Episode 9 Podcast to hear Ivy's experiences back...

Dating the precise collapse of Roman rule in London is hard. However, a lack of archaeological finds for the fifth century suggests that the Roman city was largely empty by about 450. The Anglo-Saxons developed a new port in the late seventh century, but that was upstream from the old settlement at what is now Aldwych.

It used to be thought that an imperial rescript (a set of answers to queries) of the Emperor Honorius dated to 410 was a reply to an appeal from the Britons for help, in which h...

In virus-free times you can visit three Roman sites within the City: the Amphitheatre underneath Guildhall Art Gallery, the baths on Lower Thames Street, and the Mithraeum in the Bloomberg Building. Each is definitely worth a visit, and the three are very different, not only in terms of the buildings’ original purpose, but also as visitor experiences.

The most high-tec is the Mithraeum. The construction of Bloomberg’s new European headquarters allowed for an extensive archaeological dig an...

Religious orders were divided into monks and nuns who followed a monastic life, and mendicants who followed a monastic rule but who went outside their house’s walls to preach, perform acts of charity and beg for alms. Complicating matters were canons regular, who were ordained priests (members of monastic and mendicant orders were not priests) who followed a monastic rule but who also went out into the community to preach.

The name ‘friar’ was commonly used to describe a member of a mend...

 A man of dubious character to be sure, as at 15 he was selling pornographic books and papers on the canal packet boats. He apparently disappeared from the area, returning years later he advertised he was ‘a great physician’, but he was really a man who sold potions from the back of a wagon. One of these, for pimples, was very effective and made him a fortune.  A boastful flamboyant man, who held sumptuous dinner parties in his tastefully furnished apartment in Washington, intimate with m...

Have you ever wondered how much of the James Bond stories are true? We all know 007 is a fictional character but the inspiration for the stories has to come from somewhere.

During the Second World War, the James Bond author Ian Fleming was a Naval intelligence officer at the time involved in the Goldeneye operation. Goldeneye eh - seem familiar? Fleming oversaw two of the intelligence units, 30 Assault Unit and T- Force throughout the Goldeneye operations.

His wartime service experiences provid...