North America

John Spiller surveys race relations in the United States during Reconstruction and constructs a balance sheet.

Richard Cavendish recalls the slave liberation movement in 19th-century Kansas.

Andrew Boxer traces the origins of a historical issue still as controversial and relevant today as in past centuries.

Marking the 250th anniversary of General Wolfe’s victory over the French at Quebec, Jeremy Black considers the strategy employed by British forces in their struggle to gain and hold Canada.

Richard Cavendish remembers the infamous mafia massacre of February 14, 1929.

Despite the rise of Barack Obama, many African-Americans still feel like second-class citizens. John Kirk charts the progress of the civil rights movement through its most prominent body, the NAACP, which celebrated its centenary in February 2009.

The famed radio broadcast of HG Wells' War of the Worlds took place on October 30th, 1938.

Anthony Aveni explains how the people planning great monuments and cities, many millennia and thousands of miles apart, so often sought the same inspiration – alignments with the heavens.

King was shot dead on the balcon of the Lorraine Motel on April 4th, 1968.

A century ago international anarchists were causing public outrage and panic with their terror tactics. Matt Carr considers the parallels with al-Qaeda today.

Segregation on buses in Alabama officially ended on November 13th, 1956.

Viv Sanders puts an inspiring figure, and an important event, into historical perspective.