North America

Prospecting towns like Dawson boomed during the gold rush.

The dark side of the 19th-century gold rush

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

History heroDame Vera Lynn chooses Helen Forrest (1917–99)

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: what was the Reconstruction era and why did it fail?

Britain and the slave trade

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?

Abraham Lincoln (Photo by Library of Congress)

The secret plot to kill Lincoln

Men operate a cotton gin in Dahomey, Mississippi, in 1898

7 key questions about the transatlantic slave trade – answered

A brief guide to the transatlantic slave trade

Woodcut illustration of slave labour on a sugar plantation

Success, sugar and slaves: the uncomfortable story of slaveholder Simon Taylor

Wrecked buildings in Los Angeles' South Central district following 1992 riots

The 1992 LA riots

British ships on convoy duty in the North Atlantic

Danger in the deep: key questions about the Battle of the Atlantic answered

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

Rutger Bregman’s optimistic history of the world

View of the Norse Buildings, L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, Newfoundland. (Photo by Alamy)

Medieval globetrotters

Peter Mayhew, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill, on-set of the film Star Wars

Star Wars: why did the film make history?

Flying the flag: A sailor signals a merchant ship in the Thames Estuary, 1939. Allied maritime capacity was paramount in the final victory. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Second World War

WW2: Why did the Allies win the Second World War?

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

How the world made us

Photo of JFK in the motorcade

Who killed JFK? The case that can never be closed

Hungarian Jews arrive at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1944

Editor’s pick9 top articles from the BBC World Histories archive to read right now

Hollow victory: Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, attends Paris VE Day celebrations. But many faced privation and uncertainty as the war drew to a close. (Photo by Getty Images)

VE Day at 75The bitter taste of victory: why May 1945 was not a time of celebration for everyone

A Wall Street speculator tries to sell his car to passersby

Your guide to the Great Depression

John Wilkes Booth leans forward to shoot President Abraham Lincoln as he watches a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C, in 1865.

Q&AWhat play was Abraham Lincoln watching when he was shot?

Astronauts being lifted from the Apollo 13 spacecraft after splashdown in the South Pacific,1970. (Photo by Alamy)

Apollo 13

Photo of sand dunes

Why the American Wild West was a "hotbed of scientific discovery"

Okinawa: the battle and the bomb

American soldiers in Vietnam

The war that America could never win? Opposition, dissent and the Vietnam War

The US assault on Okinawa

The WW2 battle of Okinawa: the bloodiest assault of the Pacific War

Two American soldiers wait for the second wave of combat helicopters of the 1st Air Cavalry Division during Operation Pershing during the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War defined America in the second half of the 20th century. (Photo by Patrick Christain/Getty Images)

Your guide to the Vietnam War – plus 7 surprising facts you might not know

Walt Disney uses a baton to point to sketches of Disneyland

The history of Disneyland: How Walt Disney created the 'Happiest Place on Earth'