American history

New York City police watching agents pour liquor into a sewer

Wet vs Dry: how prohibition fractured America

American socialite Wallis Simpson

The vilification of Wallis Simpson: how Edward VIII’s mistress was savaged by society

Premium

B-17 bombers make their way to England to aid the British in WW2, April 1942. (Photo by Getty Images)

From Allies to enemies . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

American actresses Frances Dee, Jean Parker, Katharine Hepburn, and Joan Bennett playing the March girls in George Cukor's film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's 'Little Women', 1933. (Photo by RKO Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images)

“Fresh and full of soul”: the history of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women

Crowds protest in Tehran

Opinion: is Iran a nation at war with itself?

Prohibition protesters parade in a car emblazoned with signs and flags calling for the repeal of the 18th Amendment, which outlawed the production and consumption of alcohol in the United States. (Archive Photos/Getty Images)

“A great social experiment”: a brief guide to prohibition

(Illustration by Davide Bonazzi for BBC World Histories Magazine)

How the American Revolution created a global storm

Premium

Richard Nixon gives a thumbs-up

Presidents under pressure: the resignation of Richard Nixon and the impeachment case against Trump . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Few war leaders have been more profoundly steeped in history than Winston Churchill, who drew inspiration from his ancestor – and one of Britain's most celebrated generals – the Duke of Marlborough (left). (Images by Getty Images/Bridgeman

Sending history into battle: the lessons that war leaders have tried to learn from the past

The White House in Washington DC, which has been home to all US presidents since John Adams in 1800. (Photo by Getty Images)

8 facts you might not know about the White House, home of the president of the USA

Lauren Bruner and Iyozo Fujita

Pearl Harbor: 5 frontline stories from people who were there

Rosa Parks rides an integrated bus

From Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King: the boycott that inspired the dream

Members of the Ku Klux Klan march down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC in 1925. The Klan of this era was a terrorist group in the precise meaning of that term, says Linda Gordon. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

When the Ku Klux Klan was a mass movement

President John F Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy and Texas governor John Connally ride through the streets of Dallas

The assassination of JFK: an eyewitness account

A young American woman gazes at a human skull, sent to her by a boyfriend during WW2

Opinion: Midway’s treatment of the Japanese enemy highlights the power and limits of empathy