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History / World History

Mohammed (seated at left) with Franklin D. Roosevelt (center) and Winston Churchill (right) at a 1943 war conference near Casablanca

The Moroccan Sultan Who Protected His Country’s Jews During World War II

Mohammed V defied the collaborationist Vichy regime, saving Morocco’s 250,000 Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps

Rasputin with his acolytes in 1914

Russian Revolution

What Really Happened During the Murder of Rasputin, Russia’s ‘Mad Monk’?

Aristocrats plotted to kill the Siberian peasant, who wielded undue influence over Nicholas II and his wife, Alexandra. But the conspiracy backfired, hastening the coming Russian Revolution

Hiroyuki Sanada as Lord Yoshii Toranaga, a fictionalized version of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, in FX's "Shogun"

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind FX’s ‘Shogun’

A new adaptation offers a fresh take on James Clavell’s 1975 novel, which fictionalizes the stories of English sailor William Adams, shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and Japanese noblewoman Hosokawa Gracia

A diver prepares to enter the water of Malakal Harbor in Palau, where the plane flown by U.S. Navy pilot Jay Ross Manown Jr. was shot down in September 1944.

Recovering the Lost Aviators of World War II

Inside the search for a plane shot down over the Pacific—and the new effort to bring its fallen heroes home

The story of the successful mission, code-named Operation Washing, offers a masterclass in determination and daring worthy of Leonidas.

Millennia After Leonidas Made His Last Stand at Thermopylae, a Ragtag Band of Saboteurs Thwarted the Axis Powers in the Same Narrow Pass

A new book chronicles the 16-plus battles that took place in the Greek pass between the ancient era and World War II

A Lötschental Valley resident dressed as a Tschägättä strolls around the village of Wiler, in Valais, Switzerland moments before the annual Carnival Parade begins.

Discover the Beasts of Switzerland’s Lötschental Valley

During Carnival, villagers wearing wooden masks and dressing like fearsome “tschäggättä” terrorize the streets

Orly Weintraub Gilad has her grandfather's Auschwitz number, A-12599, tattooed on her arm.

Why Descendants of Holocaust Survivors Are Replicating Auschwitz Tattoos

Those who choose to put the numbers on their bodies hope the act will spark conversation about the Holocaust and pay tribute to loved ones who survived

David Wisnia in his U.S. Army uniform after being “adopted” by troops of the 101st Airborne Division in 1945

The Couple Who Fell in Love in a Nazi Death Camp

A new book chronicles the unlikely connection between Helen Spitzer and David Wisnia, both of whom survived Auschwitz

Verdun, Félix Edouard Vallotton, 1917

History of Now

As Empires Clashed During World War I, a Global Media Industry Brought the Conflict’s Horrors to the Public

An exhibition at LACMA traces the roots of modern media to the Great War, when propaganda mobilized the masses, and questions whether the brutal truths of the battlefield can ever really be communicated

An illustration of Lucayan divers spearfishing for parrotfish, turtles and conch

How Archaeologists Are Unearthing the Secrets of the Bahamas’ First Inhabitants

Spanish colonizers enslaved the Lucayans, putting an end to their lineage by 1530

The Zone of Interest envisions the everyday lives of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family, rarely venturing beyond their villa’s borders to acknowledge the atrocities unfolding outside their door.

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind ‘The Zone of Interest’ and Rudolf Höss

Jonathan Glazer’s new film uses the Auschwitz commandant and his family as a vehicle for examining humans’ capacity for evil

Charles Robert Jenkins, pictured here in 2004, hoped to surrender to North Korea, then seek aslyum at the Soviet Embassy and eventually make his way back to the United States via a prisoner swap.

History of Now

The American Soldier Whose Fear of Fighting in Vietnam Led Him to Defect to North Korea. He Stayed There for 40 Years

During his time in the repressive country, Charles Robert Jenkins married a Japanese abductee, taught English at a school and appeared in propaganda films

On the morning of September 11, 2001 when the Twin Towers in New York City came under attack Univision's senior national correspondent Blanca Rosa Vílchez was one of the first journalists on the scene.

Seven Trailblazing Latina Journalists Anchor a New Museum Exhibition

Covering war, hosting presidential debates and conducting uncomfortable interviews, these women speak truths to their community

Fascinating finds unveiled in 2023 ranged from a 12-sided object that may have been used for sorcery to a lost Rembrandt portrait.

Cool Finds

117 Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2023

The year’s most exciting discoveries included a stolen Vincent van Gogh painting, a hidden medieval crypt and a gold-covered mummy

Schindler's List—a 195-minute, almost entirely black-and-white film—earned more than $300 million at the box office.

Based on a True Story

How ‘Schindler’s List’ Transformed Americans’ Understanding of the Holocaust

The 1993 film also inspired its director, Steven Spielberg, to establish a foundation that preserves survivors’ stories

Example predictions of smell-related objects from the object detection models developed by the Odeuropa project computer vision team. Image credits: J.P. Filedt Kok, 2007, 'Floris Claesz. van Dijck, Still Life with Cheeses, c. 1615', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8296 (accessed 23 October 2023 11:21:47).  

A New Encyclopedia Explores Europe’s Smelly History

Odeuropa is an online database of scents from 16th- to early 20th-century Europe culled from historical literature and art

Babyn Yar, outside Kyiv, where 33,771 Jews were killed over two days in September 1941. The small portraits show unidentified Ukrainians, likely Jews, before the war.

Ukraine Planned an Ambitious Memorial at the Site of a Holocaust Massacre. Then War Came to Kyiv

The Nazis and Soviets sought to erase the mass killing of 33,000 Jews at Babyn Yar, but a new effort seeks to remember the dead even as Russia attacks

Vanessa Kirby, who plays Joséphine in Ridley Scott's Napoleon, says the empress “was just this massive contradiction.” ­

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind Empress Joséphine in Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’

A new Hollywood epic traces Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise and fall through his checkered relationship with his first wife

“The World Made Wondrous: The Dutch Collector’s Cabinet and the Politics of Possession” takes a 17th-century Dutch cabinet as its starting point, tracing the threads of Dutch colonization through each object on view.

How Cabinets of Curiosities Laid the Foundation for Modern Museums

An exhibition at LACMA examines the legacy of Dutch colonization through a fictive 17th-century collector’s room of wonders

Princess Diana in 1985. The sixth season of "The Crown" opens 12 years later, in the summer of 1997.

Based on a True Story

How Princess Diana’s Death Transformed the Royal Family

The last season of “The Crown” will examine the aftermath of the beloved royal’s death in a car accident in 1997

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