The Battle of Hastings, where Harold's penchant for wearing on his head an upturned bucket rather than the standard issue helmet was to prove his undoing; the invention of the wheel, which occurred when a gentleman in Mesopotamia stumbled upon a bucket and watched transfixed as it rolled across the floor; the foundation of Rome: Romulus, Remus and a bucket - the rest is history.

Unchanged in design over millennia, the humble bucket possesses a versatility unmatched in the history of human invention. It is the unobtrusive onlooker, the fly on the wall sat in quiet contemplation at all great turning points in world history.

Detailing 50 buckets that were present at great moments in history, Guardian travel writer and author of Tiny Castles and Tiny Histories, Dixe Wills, describes each event through their sage and unblinking gaze. It's time to start ticking some buckets off your list.