American history

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange after the closing bell on 29 September 2008. A record 778 points were wiped off the Dow Jones that day, as the 2008 financial crisis pushed the world's banking system to the edge of collapse. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The credit crunch: “It’s a story of hubris followed by a fall”

The first baby is born to English settlers in the Americas. (Illustration by Lynn Hatzius)

A big day in history: the first baby is born to English settlers in the Americas

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln’s funniest jokes

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Brass band playing during Mardi Gras in Mew Orleans

Explore New Orleans, United States: Louisiana's 'big easy' . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Troops in Korea, c1951. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

Forging alliances: Britain and the US in the Korean War

Mel Gibson in 'The Patriot'. (© Kobal Collection)

The American War of Independence: Three Films

US president Donald Trump and the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands at a summit in Singapore on 12 June 2018. (Photo by Handout/Getty Images)

The Trump-Kim summit of June 2018: what did it really achieve?

President Ronald Reagan throwing a football from his desk in the Oval Office. (Photo by Mary Anne Fackelman-Miner/White House/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)

Opinion: the conservative legacy of Ronald Reagan

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Professor Sarah Churchwell and fellow historian Adam IP Smith discuss America's changing dream in our latest podcast.

America’s changing dream . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Podcast Website large Taylor Downing

1983: the Cold War almost goes nuclear . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

President Kennedy holds a press conference shortly before the failed 'Bay of Pigs' invasion of Cuba. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Bay of Pigs invasion: Kennedy’s Cuban catastrophe

Pathologist Thomas Harvey holds the brain of Albert Einstein in a jar, Kansas, 1994. Harvey, the on-duty pathologist during the eminent physicist's autopsy, removed Einstein’s brain and kept most of it stored in two glass jars, refrigerated inside a beer cooler, for more than 20 years. (Photo by Michael Brennan/Getty Images)

Q&A What happened to Einstein's brain?

Four black students in Greensboro, North Carolina, hold the first sit-in (Corbis.)

Timeline Key moments in the American civil rights movement

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The Vietnam War podcast

The Vietnam War on film . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A badge featuring American civil rights activist Martin Luther King

The global legacy of Martin Luther King