North America

WW2 surrender signed, 2 September 1945

Second World War

How and when did WW2 end?

Illustration for BBC History Magazine.

How potatoes conquered the world

US President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference. (Photo by Michael Reynolds/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Donald Trump: a president without precedent?

The Pilgrim fathers arrive at Plymouth, Massachusetts on board the Mayflower. (Photo by Harold M. Lambert/Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

"They decided that God must be leading them to North America": the Puritans journey to the Mayflower

As seen in this early 19th-century depiction of an initiation, Masons have long used secrecy to "create a sense of awe and specialness around their rituals". (Image by Alamy)

A history of Freemasonry: from Enlightenment ideals to satanic conspiracy stories

Old Norse sages describe Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir as 'the loveliest of women and nobel in every trait'. But this far-travelled Icelandic woman was eulogised largely not for her beauty and charm but as a strong-willed survivor who married three times and bore a son, Snorri, in Vinland (North America) during on of her intrepid voyages (Illustration by Lynn Hatzius)

The amazing life of a great female Viking explorer

The pilgrim fathers

Your guide to the Pilgrim Fathers, plus 6 interesting facts

The then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump taking part in the final presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center on the campus of the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, 19 October 2016. Trump repeatedly claimed that the election was “rigged” against him. (Photo by Joe Raedle/AFP/Getty Images)

A brief history of election “rigging” in the United States

A 19th-century painting of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

What if…Abraham Lincoln hadn't been assassinated?

The American Civil War: everything you wanted to know

Black Lives Matter activists in Seattle, June 2020. “Accounts of the past have failed to properly address persecution,” says Peter Frankopan. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)

Interview: Peter Frankopan on the state of global history

History’s greatest mysteriesThe lost colony of Roanoke Island

The arrival of Sir Walter Raleigh in Virginia

What happened to the lost colony of Roanoke Island?

National guardsmen confront confront citizens during Chicago's race riots

Red summer of 1919: the history of Chicago's race riots

Why was there a backlash against face masks during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918?

Four Murder, Inc hitmen are questioned by detectives

Murder, Inc: the rise and fall of New York City's mafia hitmen

American abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass, c 1866. (Photo by Shutterstock)

African American abolitionists in Britain

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, during their first visit to England after the Duke's abdication, September 1939. (Photo by Getty Images)

Edward VIII, Wallis Simpson and the Abdication crisis

A portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull, 1806. (Photo by IanDagnall Computing/Alamy Stock Photo)

The dark side of Alexander Hamilton

The Cuban Missile Crisis: everything you wanted to know

Phillipa Soo, Renee Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones as the Schuyler sisters in 'Hamilton'. (Image: Disney+)

The women of Hamilton: Angelica, Eliza and… Maria Reynolds

Tom Hanks in 'Greyhound' (2020)

Second World War

The real history that inspired WW2 film Greyhound

Phyllis Schlafly

The woman who opposed equality with men: Phyllis Schlafly and the real history behind Mrs. America

Freedom fighters: the enslaved people who fought for the abolition of slavery

Huge sun setting over power lines and palm trees in California. (Photo by Getty Images)

California’s century of change

World War Two: the challenge of commemoration

The bikini was showcased to the world for the first time in July 1946. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

8 historical events that happened in July

Pyongyang wreckage, Korean War

The Korean War “created a blood debt that is crucial to understanding North Korean behaviour ever since”

A mushroom cloud produced by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb during Operation Ivy, an American nuclear test that took place in 1952. (SSPL/Getty Images)

How have nuclear weapons shaped global politics? 10 key moments in the post-war atomic world

Prospectors pan for gold in Siberia during the 19th century.

Where did the major gold rushes of the 19th century happen? And why were people so keen to join the gold rush?