Danny Bird

I’m Danny, a Content Producer on HistoryExtra magazine. Working with leading historians, I commission, research, write and edit features that answer the questions readers are genuinely curious about, and I’m always looking for engaging ways to help readers keep pace with the latest expert insights and discoveries from the history they’re interested in. As well as writing, I’m a host on the HistoryExtra podcast, where you’ll find me speaking with historians about some of my favourite historical topics; namely modern Soviet/Russian and Spanish history! I joined the team in 2022, working initially as staff writer on BBC History Revealed, before moving to BBC History Magazine, which has since become HistoryExtra. I’ve been fascinated with the past since childhood and obtained a History BA (Hons) at the University of Sheffield, where I developed a special interest in the Spanish Civil War and the Paris Commune. I then gained my History MA from University College London, studying at its School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), where I researched the early Soviet state’s fixation with the Paris Commune. Prior to joining HistoryExtra, I was a civil servant and a freelance writer for Time and History Today magazine, writing on everything from the story behind Picasso’s masterpiece, Guernica, to the historical role of revolutions.

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Life of the Week: Stalin. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Author Jane Austen and the Prince Regent

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Regency timelinethe key dates you need to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Protestors against the Sedition Act outside the White House

20th Century

What was the 1918 Sedition Act?

Johannes Gutenberg examines a page from the moveable type printing press that he invented

Medieval

Who invented the printing press?

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Video podcastMarshal Pétain: Vichy France in the dock. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Marshal Pétain: Vichy France in the dock. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Ancient Egyptian pyramids: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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BBC History Revealed's Miscellany podcast picks. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egyptian religion: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A painted portrait of William Blake

Georgian

William BlakeRomantic visionary

Fulvia gleefully posing with Cicero’s severed head, in an 1898 painting by Pavel Svedomsky. Whether or not she pierced his tongue with hairpins is the subject of debate (Photo by CBW / Alamy Stock Photo)

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Fulvia: the maligned wife of politicians who made herself the power broker of ancient Rome. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Two police officers take off a man in a police car during the Notting Hill race riots, London, UK, 2 September 1958.

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How did the US civil rights movement influence Britain?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The city of Hiroshima, Japan, a few days after the first atom bomb is dropped in August 1945. This clearly demonstrated the apocalyptic potential of the new weapon (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Second World War

The Manhattan Project: your guide to the building of the first atomic bomb

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Eastern Europe: a personal journey through the region’s past. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Illustration of Spartacus, the escaped gladiator who became a leader in the Third Servile War, and his comrades using vines to abseil down the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in preparation of a surprise attack.

Roman

The Servile Wars: Spartacus & the rebellions that threatened the Roman Republic

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Franco’s Spain: paranoia, conspiracy & antisemitism. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Paris became a charnel house during the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre, as shown in this painting by François Dubois (Photo By DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini via Getty Images)

General Early Modern

Catholics vs HuguenotsYour guide to the French Wars of Religion

A family walks through San Francisco’s Chinatown district in 1904. Chinese culture endured in the US in spite of the Chinese Exclusion Act (Photo by Arnold Genthe/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

General Modern

The Chinese Exclusion Act: your guide to the 19th-century US anti-immigration laws

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Russian tsars: everything you wanted to know. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Charles I of England, Puyi of China and Lydia Liliuokalani of Hawaii

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The kingdom is deadWhat causes monarchies to fail?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Charge of the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava, 1854. Artist Hayes, Michael Angelo (1820-1877).

Victorian

The Crimean WarA timeline of key moments

The cover of Le Petit Journal, 13 January 1895, showing the "degradation" of Alfred Dreyfus during which his sword was snapped over a warrant officer’s knee (Photo by Leemage / Corbis via Getty Images)

General Modern

The Dreyfus Affair: how France was divided over a miscarriage of justice

The hammer and sickle, seen held aloft by the figures in this Soviet-era statue, symbolised unity between the working class and the peasantry

20th Century

When and why did the Soviet Union fall? Your history guide to the USSR

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