Central America

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Pectoral ornament in the form of a double headed serpent, Aztec/ Mixtec, c 1400/1521 (Photo by Getty Images)

The Aztecs: everything you wanted to know . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

An African man after being liberated from a slave ship by the Royal Navy, 1871. In all, more than 12 million captives were loaded onto Atlantic slavers’ vessels. (Pictures from History/Bridgeman Images)

A brief guide to the transatlantic slave trade

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

Rutger Bregman’s optimistic history of the world . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Postcards from the past competition

Postcards from the past: Aged between 6–13? Enter our exciting lockdown competition

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

How the world made us . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Coronavirus: what might we learn from pandemics in the past? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

Coronavirus: a historical perspective . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Pod Colin Grant WL

The Windrush generation . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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

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