Edward Jenner developed the world’s first vaccine in 1796, when he inoculated a young boy against smallpox with pus collected from a cowpox sore on a milkmaid in Berkeley, Gloucestershire. In the 19th

Lucy Inglis BornThe untold history of childbirth336pp. Bloomsbury Continuum. £25. Hannah Marsh ThreadA Caesarean story of myth, magic andmedicine320pp. Leap. £20. Lucy Inglis’s new book Born: The unto

This moment is surely imbued with the most global symbolism. It was when, according to the Old Norse-Icelandic sagas, adventurers sailed across the north Atlantic from settlements on the west coast of

Samurai rose to be global emblems of honour and courage, but their story doesn’t always match the myths they told about themselves, as a British Museum exhibition shows

From George Stubbs’s golden vision of the labourer’s place in society to Ford Madox Brown’s heroically monumental celebration of manual labour, artists gave individual interpretations of work, as Michael Hall reveals

→ When John Logie Baird demonstrated the first working television set in 1926, a theatre impresario was so worried about the impact on the West End that he offered the scientist £1,000 to throw his de