American history

Pocahontas and John Smith in Disney's ‘Pocahontas’ (1995). (Photo by AF archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Disney history: how has the corporation shaped our perception of the past?

PT Barnum and General Tom Thumb

The greatest show on earth? The myths of the Victorian freak show

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James Shapiro discusses Shakespeare and America. (Images by Dreamstime)

Shakespeare and America . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Thomas Ellis charted the frantic efforts to bring the crew of Apollo 13 home. (Image by Getty Images)

The race to save Apollo 13

Portrait of Madam CJ Walker, America's first female millionaire. (Photo courtesy of Madam Walker Family Archives/A'Lelia Bundles)

Self Made: the real story of Madam CJ Walker, America’s first black female millionaire

Shoppers crowd a Woolworths store in 1955

Q&A Has there always been panic buying? And when have people panic shopped through history?

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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.

'The Poor Actress's Christmas Dinner', a painting by pre-Raphaelite artist Robert Braithwaite Martineau, says much about the way Victorians had begun to understand the problem of loneliness. (Photo by Bridgeman Art Library)

The invention of loneliness: why being ‘unhappy alone’ is a surprisingly modern idea

Immigrant children are examined by a city health officer upon arrival at the battery from Ellis Island during a Typhus scare, c1911. (Image by Bettmann/Getty Images)

A short history of quarantine

A group of men stand at a booth whose banner reads 'Headquarters National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage,' early 1910s. (Photo by Stock Montage/Getty Images)

Anti-suffrage: the women who didn’t want the vote

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Writer and journalist Hadley Freeman

Hadley Freeman on a 20th-century family history . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Al Pacino and Logan Lerman in Amazon Prime's 'Hunters'.

A historian’s review of Amazon’s “Holocaust revenge saga” Hunters

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On his plantation in Georgia, American politician Benjamin Hawkins is teaching Creek Native Americans how to use a plow, 1805. (Photo by Granger, NYC / TopFoto)

Food and war . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

The story of Martin Luther King’s struggle for civil rights in America