Charles River Editors

Japan's blissful isolation changed with the arrival of American Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853. In awe of the American weapons and ships, the Tokugawa shogunate quickly realized that they needed to evolve and modernize their military to survive, and a time of rapid change descended on Japan.

Africa may have given rise to the first human beings, and Egypt probably gave rise to the first great civilizations, which continue to fascinate modern societies across the globe nearly 5,000 years later.

Despite losing the 1948 War, Arab nations throughout the Middle East had still refused to recognize Israel’s right to exist. After the Suez Crisis, Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser envisioned creating a unified Arab world, commonly referred to as pan-Arabism....

The growing buzz of aircraft engines disturbed the Japanese military construction personnel hauling equipment ashore on the beige coral sand of Tulagi Island on May 4, 1942....

For centuries, Christians and Muslims were embroiled in one of the most infamous territorial disputes of all time, viciously and relentlessly battling one another for the Holy Land....

The reign of the Khmer Rouge, a Cambodian communist regime, began on April 7, 1975 as Khmer Rouge militants entered the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, ultimately gaining control and forcing out its residents....

Virtually everyone in America is familiar with theories about UFOs, or “flying saucers” as they were often called then, but even this name dates back only to 1947....

In the summer of 1992, federal agents surrounded a few acres of land isolated in Ruby Ridge, Idaho....

The FBI and J. Edgar Hoover: The History and Legacy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Under Its First Director examines the events that led to the formation of the FBI, the most important cases it was involved in, and the controversies surrounding Hoover’s methods....

The fighting in North Africa during World War II is commonly overlooked, aside from the famous battle at El Alamein....

When most people think of “ancient American civilizations,” the Aztec, Maya, or Inca cultures probably come to mind immediately, because the societies in Mesoamerica have left behind permanent structures for millions of visitors from around the world to see each year....

The Partition of Ireland and the Troubles: The History of Northern Ireland from the Irish Civil War to the Good Friday Agreement analyzes the tumultuous events that marked the creation of Northern Ireland, and the conflicts fueled by the partition....

In 2000, The Patriot, starring Mel Gibson, captured the nation's attention with the highly dramatized story of an American patriot fighting the British in South Carolina....

The Civil War was the deadliest conflict in American history, lasting four years and inflicting over a million casualties. Historians have studied the biggest battles ever since....

While people still romanticize the Wild West, many Americans are still all too familiar with the fate of the Donner Party....

Among the many stars gathered by Berry Gordy's Motown Records during the latter half of the 20th century, one of the most famous and successful was Marvin Gaye....

Worship of the Feathered Serpent can be traced back 2,000 years, and the Serpent’s cults appear all across Mesoamerica. The Olmec, the Aztec, and both the Yucatec and K’iche Mayans all had different names for this deity, including Kukulkan, Q’uq’umatz, and Tohil....

Although the city had been destroyed, the legacy of the Persians survived, even as they mostly remain an enigma to the West and are not nearly as well understood as the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians....

A subculture based of the coastal South Atlantic states and Sea Islands. These culture bearers, who refer to themselves as the Gullah Geechee, or the “Gullah” for short, are the descendants and rightful heirs of the once-shackled slaves who resided in these parts....

“Scotch-Irish” is an American term that became popular in the latter 1800s, referring to the largely Protestant immigrants to the United States originating in the northern Irish province of Ulster....