North America

Video March on Washington WL

What was the March on Washington?

Martin Luther King speaks in front of microphones, during the March on Washtington

“I Have A Dream”: the speech that America couldn’t ignore

A modern painting of the battle of Long Island

What if… the Continental Army had not escaped after the battle of Long Island?

Is Oppenheimer guilty of perpetuating a historical myth?

Oppenheimer Is Nolan perpetuating a historical myth?

A c1943 photograph of USS Indianapolis. Built in New Jersey, the Portland-class heavy cruiser was launched in 1931 (Photo by US Navy/Interim Archives/Getty Images)

Second World War

Into the jaws of hell: the WW2 sinking of USS Indianapolis

A boy signs a petition against slavery (bottom left)

The children who fought for the abolition of slavery

J Robert Oppenheimer (left), and Cillian Murphy

Oppenheimer: the real history of the ‘father of the atomic bomb’

Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, seen in 1975, would have been the leading candidate to be the first person to step on the Moon had the Soviets landed before the US (Photo by Space Frontiers/Getty Images)

What if... The Soviets had landed on the Moon first and won the Space Race?

The city of Hiroshima, Japan, a few days after the first atom bomb is dropped in August 1945. This clearly demonstrated the apocalyptic potential of the new weapon (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Second World War

The Manhattan Project: your guide to the building of the first atomic bomb

Juneteenth celebrations, also known as Emancipation Day, in Texas, 1900

Juneteenth What is it, historians on its relevance, and 9 articles you should read

American aviator Bessie Coleman pictured in c1922, around the time she made her debut flight. Her astonishing aerial stunts would earn her the monikers ‘Queen Bess’ and ‘Brave Bessie’ (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Bessie Coleman: a boundary-breaking pilot who fought for her dream

A uniformed US soldier plants American flags at gravesites on Memorial Day

Memorial Day A brief history

A clown, c1970s. The next decade, there would be a panic over

General History

Clowns, agoraphobia and kayaks: a history of fear and loathing

A family walks through San Francisco’s Chinatown district in 1904. Chinese culture endured in the US in spite of the Chinese Exclusion Act (Photo by Arnold Genthe/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)

The Chinese Exclusion Act: your guide to the 19th-century US anti-immigration laws

Elsie Wright, who with her cousin Frances Griffiths took photos of sprites, gnomes and fairies, 1917 (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images)

Fake news: 8 of the most notorious photograph hoaxes, from fairies to UFOs