Buzz Aldrin Poses next To The U.S. flag On Moon

American history

Prohibition: everything you wanted to know.

Outlander: the real history that inspired the time-slip drama

Young civil rights activists sit in defiance at a ‘whites only’ lunch counter in Oklahoma City, 1958

Jim Crow in the United States: a brief guide to the racial segregation laws

A broker looks at his screens at Frankfurt's stock exchange on 15 September 2008. (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/AFP/Getty Images)

The 2008 financial crisis explained

A flapper shows off her hidden bottles of alcohol

The morning after: the impact of prohibition.

Tales of Irish emigration.

Spy plane photos revealed that missile bases were being built on Cuba, prompting the crisis. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

What if...The Cuban Missile Crisis escalated?.

A set of dentures belonging to George Washington. The first US president wore fake teeth for much of his life

Q&ADid George Washington have wooden teeth?

The Cold War: everything you wanted to know.

Vikings in North America.

The women who fought back against Hollywood.

Engraved portrait of George Washington, the first president of the United States of America

George Washington: your guide to the war hero, founding father, first US president and slave owner

A women drives oxen pulling a loaded wagon train through the Black Hills (in South Dakota or Wyoming) in 1887

From the real Calamity Jane to 'Madam Moustache': pioneer women of the Wild West.

The forgotten mothers of civil rights leaders.

Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman to receive a medical degree in the US

Elizabeth BlackwellThe ‘first female doctor’, who entered medicine to prove a point

Cary Grant: from humble beginnings to Hollywood icon.

Speech of Adolf Hitler to the Reichstag inthe Kroll Opera in Berlin after the Declaration of war to the USA, in addition to the lectern to the right: Press Chief Otto Dietrich and the personal adjutant of Hitler Albert Bormann the Brigade Commander o

Second World War

"One of the most puzzling decisions of WW2": Ian Kershaw on why Hitler declared war on America

Harriet Tubman (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad: how one woman saved hundreds from hell.

RuPaul – who produces and presents the reality TV show bearing his name – performs during a Gay Rights March in Washington, DC, April 1993. Over 500,000 LGBTQ+ activists and allies participated in a gathering organised to end discrimination. (Photo by Porter Gifford/Liaison)

From Fanny and Stella to Ru Paul's Drag Race: a short history of drag.

Supporters of Donald Trump protest in Pennsylvania as the state’s electoral college casts its votes, December 2020

The constitutional crisis behind 2021's presidential transition.

Mourning Martin Luther King JrThe life and legacy of the civil rights leader.

When British pop invaded America.

Richard Nixon resigns

Which US presidents have been impeached? A brief history of presidential impeachment

9 things you (probably) didn’t know about Helen Keller

Editor’s pick: Ron Chernow on Alexander Hamilton.

Portrait of founding father Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull

Your guide to Alexander Hamilton, plus 6 fascinating facts about the founding father

'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' (2020): Viola Davis as Ma Rainey. (Photo by David Lee/Netflix)

Who was Ma Rainey, “mother of the blues”?

Second World War

Caught off guard: why didn't America see Pearl Harbor coming?

A brief history of turkeys, plus why we eat a turkey dinner at Christmas

The Wild West: everything you wanted to know.