Cold War - Getty Images

Cold War

A composite image of US President Franklin D Roosevelt in front of the US and Latin American national flags.

Second World War

In the aftermath of WW2, why did FDR’s Latin American experiment end in abject failure?

Churchill and de Gaulle: a strange relationship.

Francisco Franco: life of the week.

Robert McNamara: life of the week.

The summer that changed everything for the Kennedys.

The librarian who stole KGB secrets.

On 27 May 1954, Sir Winston Churchill addresses a meeting of the Women’s Conservative Association. Nearly a decade after leading Britain through the Second World War, the prime minister remained a commanding figure in British politics and public life.

Second World War

It was Operation Unthinkable: Churchill's "impossible" plan to start World War 3

Reagan's plan to 'make America great again'.

America in Korea: a failed occupation?.

How the Cold War made the modern world.

In a televised address on 15 August 1973, President Richard Nixon proclaimed his innocence in the Watergate affair and urged Americans to reject efforts to exploit the scandal. This photograph was taken after the broadcast, as cameras were barred during the speech.

Watergate is the ultimate American conspiracy – but what if we’ve been misunderstanding it all along?

Iron Mountain: the conspiracy that duped America.

J Robert Oppenheimer (left), and Cillian Murphy

Is Oppenheimer a true story? Meet the real Robert Oppenheimer, ‘father of the atomic bomb’

Cold War-era President John F Kennedy leaves St Stephen Martyr Catholic Church in Washington DC — just hours before Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to withdraw missiles from Cuba, defusing the Cold War’s most dangerous standoff.

The CIA’s most unlikely Cold War weapon? A secret smuggling operation that terrified Soviet censors

CIA book smugglers of the Cold War.

A pink tissue box with a white tissue coming out of it

From Operation Snuffles to Killer Kleenex: the forgotten history of the secret Cold War experiments in Antarctica has just been uncovered

Could the US have won the Vietnam war?.

A character from Atomfall in front of the Windscale nuclear facility.

Britain’s worst nuclear disaster: the Windscale fire of 1957

My history heroJames Coomarasamy chooses Andrei Sakharov.

Several men stand around a table in a submarine

Whiskey on the Rocks: the real story behind Soviet submarine S-363’s Cold War grounding

Joseph McCarthy: life of the week.

Former Soviet Colonel Stanislav Petrov at his home in 2004.

The Soviet soldier who saved the world: how did Stanislav Petrov prevent nuclear Armageddon?

Oleg Gordievsky

Oleg Gordievsky: the double agent who changed the course of the Cold War

How Kissinger transformed the Cold War.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the moon's surface

The history of the first moon landing: the road to Apollo 11

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?.

Construction of the Berlin Wall begins at Ebertstrasse. The barrier would divide the city for 28 years (Photo by von der Becke/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

Life in East Germany: the cultural evolution behind the Iron Curtain.

Everyday life in East Germany.

The KGB’s secret war on the west.

The Cuban Missile CrisisWorld on the brink.