Central America - Getty Images

Central America

The Aztecs: everything you wanted to know.

Magic stone in Laraibina village in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea on September 27, 2009. This magic stone is hidden in a tree in Laraibina village. It is very useful to call the rain or to make some magic actions on people. It is forbidden to touch it, only the witch doctor can hold it. The same kind of stones exists in Vanuatu. (Photo by Eric LAFFORGUE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

A sweeping history of magic – from witchcraft to shamanism.

A brief guide to the transatlantic slave trade.

Rutger Bregman. (Rutger Bregman (Photo by Maartje ter Horst)

Rutger Bregman’s optimistic history of the world.

Tectonic foliation in metamorphic rocks at Porthleven, Cornwall. (Photo by Getty Images)

How the world made us.

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: what might we learn from pandemics in the past?.

Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: a historical perspective.

The Windrush generation.

New York City police watching agents pour liquor into a sewer

Wet vs Dry: how prohibition fractured America.

Lázaro Cárdenas, Mexico's left-wing president who in 1940 legalised drugs. (Photo by Henry Guttmann/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The year Mexico legalised drugs.

How is the image of revolutionary Che Guevara commodified? Alex von Tunzelmann explores. (Photo by Francois ANCELLET/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

Che Guevara: face of the revolution.

In only two years, Hernán Cortés brought about the downfall of an efficient military civilisation through a combination of diplomacy, warfare, tactics, luck and sheer force of personality, writes Caroline Dodds. (Photo by Ann Ronan Pictures/Print Collector/Getty Images)

Cortés and Montezuma: the conquering of Tenochtitlan

A painting depicting the Mexican-American War of 1846–48: battle of Buena Vista, also known as battle of Angostura. Since that traumatic war, the US-Mexico bilateral relationship "has experienced sharp ups-and-downs; but there have also been underlying continuities," says Professor Alan Knight. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

Peace, stability and pragmatism: a brief history of US-Mexico relations.

An example of the Zimmermann Telegram

First World War

The Zimmermann telegram: the telegram that brought America into the First World War

Fidel Castro addresses delegates of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, September 1960. (Photo by Tommy Weber/AFP/Getty Images)

How should history remember Fidel Castro?.

Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull. (Photo by Francis G. Mayer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

Alexander Hamilton vs Thomas Jefferson: the rise and fall of America's founding fathers.

An Aztec priest performing the sacrificial offering of a living human's heart to the war god Huitzilopochtli. (Photo by Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

General ancient history

Q&AHow many people did the Aztecs sacrifice?

Mona Baptiste, a Trinidad-born blues singer

“London is the place for me”: David Olusoga on the Windrush generation.

Church of Santo Domingo de Guzman in Oaxaca Mexico

ExploreOaxaca: Central Mexico’s “fair and beautiful city”.

Bob Marley performs live on stage with the Wailers in Holland

My history hero: Bob Marley (1945–81).

Government troops patrol a village during the Salvadoran Civil War

The end of El Salvador's civil war.

Statue of Toussaint Louverture, Palais National, Haiti. (Photo by Getty Images)

My history hero: Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803).

Fidel Castro: in pictures

America's devious dream: Roosevelt and the Panama Canal.

Francis Drake

Life of the Week: Sir Francis Drake

Artist Leonora Carrington

My history hero: Leonora Carrington (1917–2011).

Photo of pipe and tobacco

Q&ADid people smoke anything before tobacco was discovered?

A still from a 1960 film about the Alamo, showing the chapel being covered by troops

Remember the Alamo! What happened in the 1836 siege and battle?

A painting in the cave of Altamira, Spain

The rise of Homo sapiens.

A portrait of Ian Lancaster Fleming, the creator of the character James Bond

The spy who loved Jamaica.