American history

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)

The reconstruction of America after the Civil War

Robert E Lee (seated at the table, left) surrenders to Union commander Ulysses S Grant at Appomattox Court House. (Image by Alamy)

A battle of wills: why the South lost the American Civil War

An illustration depicting the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 1865. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

Q&A Could modern medicine have saved Abraham Lincoln?

President Abraham Lincoln visiting soldiers encamped at the Civil War battlefield of Antietam in Maryland, 1 October 1862. (Photo by Rischgitz/Getty Images)

The American Civil War: 7 facts and fictions

An illustration showing the effects of the Fugitive Slave Act, passed by Congress in 1850. The law aimed to make it easier for slaveholders to reclaim runaway ‘property’ in the free states, and contributed to rising political tension. (Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty images)

The story of the American Civil War: 32 key moments in the landmark conflict

A US soldier teaching two junior 'rookie' recruits how to clean a gun during the First World War

First World War

7 things you (probably) didn’t know about America’s entry and involvement in the First World War

A joint Franco-Native Indian raid left 56 residents of Deerfield, a small township in north-western Massachusetts, dead. (Alamy)

America: Brave new world or accident?

American civil rights leader Martin Luther King in Washington DC, where he delivered his famous 'I Have A Dream' speech to a quarter of a million civil rights supporters in Washington DC in August 1963. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

Mourning Martin Luther King Jr: the life and legacy of the civil rights leader

Jesse James is one of America’s most notorious outlaw heroes. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

How historically accurate are film portrayals of Jesse James?

Perkin Warbeck, an imposter and pretender to the English throne, being humiliated in the stocks before his execution in 1499. Warbeck was used by Henry VII’s Yorkist enemies in an unsuccessful plot to threaten the new Tudor dynasty. (Getty Images)

Imposters in history: 16 famous con-artists and pretenders

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

Grace Humiston was nicknamed 'Mrs Sherlock Holmes' by the American press. (Image courtesy of Brad Ricca)

First World War

America’s ‘Mrs Holmes’: how one woman took on the cases the NYPD couldn’t solve

An example of the Zimmermann Telegram

First World War

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

French government officials at an inaugural tour to mark the completion of the main structural work on the Eiffel Tower, c1889. (Time Life Pictures/Pix Inc./The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Second World War

10 historical events that happened in March