American history

A family comprising several generations of enslaved people. Resistance, common throughout the history of slavery, ranged from slow working to violent fights for freedom (Universal History Archive/Gertty Images)

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

A depiction of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence, 4 July, 1776, from a painting by John Trumbull. The men standing are (l to r) John Adams, Roger Sherman Robert R. Livingston, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. (Image by Bettmann/Getty Images)

Why does the United States of America celebrate Independence Day on 4 July?

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

Mel Gibson in a scene from the film 'Braveheart'

Good drama, bad history: 11 historically inaccurate films you need to watch

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?

Atomic bomb damage in the city of Hiroshima, 1945. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 “razed and burnt around 70 per cent of all buildings”, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Second World War

Was the US justified in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Second World War?

Rosemary Kennedy (right), the eldest Kennedy daughter. Pictured here with her mother Rose (centre) and sister Kathleen, during the family's residency in Britain in the late 1930s. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The lost Kennedy: the tragic life of JFK’s sister Rosemary

American jazz singer Helen Forrest performing with trumpeter Harry James (1916-1983), c1945. (Photo by Metronome/Getty Images)

Second World War

My history hero Dame Vera Lynn chooses Helen Forrest (1917-1999)

Emmett Till funeral

American spotlight: how today’s protests echo historical outrage

Violence erupted in New Orleans, and white southerners killed and injured more than 100 freed slaves during a riot against reconstruction plans. (Image by Alamy)

Rebuilding America after the Civil War: did reconstruction sow more division?

Slaves of Confederate Brigadier-General Thomas F Drayton at his cotton plantation in South Carolina during the American Civil War

Why is America haunted by its past?

Two girls are tried for witchcraft in a courtroom scene

What were the Salem Witch Trials?