Weave together the many narratives of world history with our highly curated and expanding selection of diverse, fascinating resources designed to showcase the breadth and richness of Earth's story, from the earliest traces of human civilization to the dramatic developments of contemporary cultures.
Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
The Constitution was ratified before a formal list of rights was added. To avoid reopening debates, the Founders approved the core document first, then adopted the Bill of Rights as amendments. Watch this video to find out why and how that happened.
In a 1965 CBS interview, J. Robert Oppenheimer discussed his role as Los Alamos director, expressing deeply mixed feelings about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and reflecting on how nuclear weapons had transformed the world since their first use.
The first structure—built to last 20 to 30 years—served as a covering for the exploded reactor and was built from about 16 million pounds of steel. In 2016, a new containment shell was constructed nearby and rolled onto the previous structure before being finalized in 2019.
When news broke that Batista had fled on New Year’s Eve 1958, photographer Burt Glinn rushed from Miami to Havana without an assignment. His iconic images—tanks in Old Havana and tearful reunions—captured a nation celebrating, uncertain, and on the brink of radical change.
This article examines how Martin Luther King Jr. drew on the language and ideals of the Declaration of Independence to frame the civil rights movement as a continuation of the nation’s founding promises.
Season 1 of this acclaimed UK podcast, hosted by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, delves into the East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, and the forces that shaped—and ultimately unraveled—British rule in India.
The group—collectively referred to as "liquidators"—included firefighters, military troops, miners, engineers and sanitation crews. Beyond clearing radioactive debris and performing decontamination work, they confined radioactive material to prevent its spread into groundwater.
From drilling to driving, crude oil is processed in refineries and transformed into everyday products like fuel, plastics, lubricants, and cosmetics. The US currently uses about 20 million of those barrels per day.
Born into wealth, Fidel Castro launched his first revolt against Batista at the age of 27. His failed 1953 uprising—and the trial where he declared, “History will absolve me”—marked the beginning of a decades-long political life, as traced in this photo-rich timeline.
In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. This interactive archive from the JFK Library reconstructs those tense days through documents, photos, and secretly recorded conversations from the Kennedy White House.
