Charles River Editors

An often overlooked, yet very important, environmental process in world history is known as the “Late Antique Little Ice Age,” which took place during the 6th century A.D. across most of the Northern Hemisphere and received its name because it was shorter and less well-known than the Little Ice Age.

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.

Of the many campaigns during the Middle Ages, few are as remarkable or seemingly impossible to win at the start as the First Crusade (1095-99), and the true crowning achievement of that crusade....

During the first half of the 1st millennium CE, an empire arose in Persia that extended its power and influence to Mesopotamia in the east, Arabia in the south, the Caucasus Mountains in the north, and as far east as India.

Since the early days of human warfare, which may date back to the Stone Age, combatants have sought to gain an advantage through the acquisition of secret information. With the growth of technology, a parallel advantage was sought through the application of numerous types of torture....

By the second century CE, Londinium was a large Roman city, with tens of thousands of inhabitants using villas, palaces, a forum, temples, and baths. The Roman governor ruled from the city in a basilica that served as the seat of government....

In the 50 years following the First Crusade, the Latin states in the East were consolidated, but there were also growing tensions and new challenges.

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....

To the Aztecs, Huitzilopochtli wore a blue-green hummingbird helmet and was draped in pure white heron feathers. He carried a smoking mirror, an obsidian mirror, a shield, darts, and the serpent Xiuhcoatl that carried with it the fury and might of the sun....

For more than half a century, the names J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were synonymous with epic fantasy.

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....

The OSS and CIA: The History of America’s Intelligence Community during World War II and the Establishment of the Central Intelligence Agency looks at the agencies’ organizational characteristics, historical inception, early Cold War growth, and recent influence....

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

To most people in the West, particularly the youth, the mere mention of Japan immediately evokes various images. A delectable rainbow of sushi, hand-rolled temaki, and platters of crispy, golden-brown tempura....

To say Edith Stein lived a remarkable life would be a dramatic understatement. Born in Breslau (then part of Germany) at the end of the 19th century, Edith was raised as an observant jew, only to turn her back on religion right around the time World War I devastated the continent....

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....

Historians believe that even Jim Bridger’s prodigious travels were eclipsed by that of New York-born Jedediah Strong Smith, whose uncharacteristic personal life set him apart from the rough-edged mountain man reputation....

John Moses Browning was raised in what was at the time the “Wild West” of the Utah Country. His educational upbringing was both sparse and basic, but through the impetus of his father’s gun-making business, he would become the greatest mind of the arms industry’s modern age....

After the siege of Boston forced the British to evacuate that city in March 1776, Continental Army commander George Washington suspected that the British would move by sea to New York City....

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....