North America

LA Times photo from newspaper report 1942

A big day in history: Japanese planes attack Los Angeles. Or do they?

An illustration depicting the battle of Naseby, arguably one of the most significant land battles in British history. (Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

20 important battles that shaped Britain

A big day in history: A speck of glitter triggers the California Gold Rush

Winston Churchill, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, gives his 'victory' sign while making a polling day tour of his constituency during an election. (Getty Images)

Are these the most overrated people in history?

George Frederick Handel married opera's passion with the respectability of biblical texts, says Tim Blanning. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)

10 milestones in the history of western music

A 1864 campaign banner. (David J & Janice Frent/Corbis via Getty Images)

US presidents: Race, religion and re-election?

Ye olde travel guide: Philadelphia 1774

Rosa Parks Riding the Bus

My history hero: Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

A coloured engraving from the 16th century depicting Walter Ralegh's arrival in Virginia. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Tudors in America: how England's New World colonies came into being

The Cold War Olympic boycott

Industrial might: Blenheim bombers in production in England, late 1939. The Allies’ combined industrial strength proved too much for the Axis. (Getty Images)

Second World War

The LibraryThe world in flames

Richard Buckminster standing next to his draft of a house of the 21st century. (Ullstein picture via Getty Images)

My History Hero: Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983)

Abraham Lincoln: 5 facts

An American privateer is shown repelling a British attack during the War of 1812. Despite some notable successes, the British regarded the entire conflict as a sideshow and quickly forgot it. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

When Washington burned

Vintage map of the Bahamas. (Library of Congress)

Ye Olde Travel Guide: Bahamas 1718

Hard labour: a woman tarring and flinting in Oxford Street, central London, 1919. (Getty Images)

The Library“Our Excess Girls": women after the First World War

In the 16,000 years after the end of the last Ice Age, societies in Eurasia and the Americas followed radically different trajectories. Here, an Aztec priest offers the heart taken from a living person to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli. (Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

The old world and the new

Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge. (David Levenson/Getty Images)

My history hero: Sir Moses I Finley (1912–86)

American golfer Bobby Jones practising his swing on the roof of the Savoy Hotel in London. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

My history hero: Robert Tyre Jones (1902–71)

1492: The Year Our World Began

My history hero: Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)

A European buyer of enslaved people

General History

Who started the enslavement of Africans in the Americas?

Illustration by Jonty Clark

Ye olde travel guide: New Orleans 1858

The surprisingly long history of humanity's political development

Lincoln’s British enemies

Civil rights and the Civil War

Two women from South America. Six centuries ago South American civilisations matched the west in some respects. (Getty Images)

The wonder of the west

Communist sport: Cold War copycats

BBC History Magazine

The American ‘Occupation’ of Britain: Three films

American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) who wrote under the pseudonym of Mark Twain, standing outside on a porch. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Mark Twain: America’s historical conscience?