North America

Ye olde travel guide: Philadelphia 1774. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Rosa Parks Riding the Bus

My history hero: Rosa Parks (1913-2005). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A coloured engraving from the 16th century depicting Walter Ralegh's arrival in Virginia. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Tudors in America: how England's New World colonies came into being. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The Cold War Olympic boycott. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Industrial might: Blenheim bombers in production in England, late 1939. The Allies’ combined industrial strength proved too much for the Axis. (Getty Images)

Second World War

The LibraryThe world in flames

Richard Buckminster standing next to his draft of a house of the 21st century. (Ullstein picture via Getty Images)

My History Hero: Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Abraham Lincoln: 5 facts

An American privateer is shown repelling a British attack during the War of 1812. Despite some notable successes, the British regarded the entire conflict as a sideshow and quickly forgot it. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)

When Washington burned. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Vintage map of the Bahamas. (Library of Congress)

Ye Olde Travel Guide: Bahamas 1718. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Hard labour: a woman tarring and flinting in Oxford Street, central London, 1919. (Getty Images)

The Library“Our Excess Girls": women after the First World War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

In the 16,000 years after the end of the last Ice Age, societies in Eurasia and the Americas followed radically different trajectories. Here, an Aztec priest offers the heart taken from a living person to the god of war, Huitzilopochtli. (Photo12/UIG via Getty Images)

The old world and the new. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge. (David Levenson/Getty Images)

My history hero: Sir Moses I Finley (1912–86). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

American golfer Bobby Jones practising his swing on the roof of the Savoy Hotel in London. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

My history hero: Robert Tyre Jones (1902–71)

1492: The Year Our World Began

My history hero: Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A European buyer of enslaved people

General History

Who started the enslavement of Africans in the Americas?

Illustration by Jonty Clark

Ye olde travel guide: New Orleans 1858. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The surprisingly long history of humanity's political development

Lincoln’s British enemies. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Civil rights and the Civil War. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Two women from South America. Six centuries ago South American civilisations matched the west in some respects. (Getty Images)

The wonder of the west

Communist sport: Cold War copycats. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

BBC History Magazine

The American ‘Occupation’ of Britain: Three films

American author Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910) who wrote under the pseudonym of Mark Twain, standing outside on a porch. (Photo by Time Life Pictures/Mansell/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Mark Twain: America’s historical conscience?. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

British soldier, explorer and big game hunter Frederick Selous, pictured in 1914. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The hunter who became a naturalist. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Sunbathers enjoy some fun and games at a tennis court near a lido at Castle Mill, Cheshire, August 1936

The 1930s: When the future looked bright. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton: The eye that never slept. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A portrait of the English explorer Samuel Hearne. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

My history hero: Samuel Hearne (1745–92). This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The LibraryThe battle of Quebec and the jealousy of a queen. This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Q&AWhat is the origin of the phrase ‘going postal’, meaning ‘going berserk’?