Europe
Plagues, revolutions, and rebirths that repeatedly redrew the continent's map and its ideas.
Pompeii: A City Frozen in the Middle of an Afternoon
When Mount Vesuvius erupted, ash and pumice buried Pompeii so quickly that everyday objects, and the people who owned them, were preserved almost exactly as they were.
The Viking Age Was Also an Age of Trade and Settlement
Alongside their famous raids, Norse seafarers established trade routes, settlements, and even a short-lived colony in North America, five centuries before Columbus.
The Black Death Killed a Third of Europe — and Changed the Rest
The plague's death toll was so severe that the resulting labor shortages helped weaken the feudal system that had structured European society for centuries.
Florence: A Wool Town That Became the Birthplace of an Age
Wealth from banking and textiles allowed Florentine families like the Medici to fund artists and scholars, turning one Italian city into the launchpad of the Renaissance.
The Night an Announcement Brought Down a Wall
A confused press conference answer about new travel rules sent thousands of Berliners to the checkpoints that same night, and the wall that had divided a city for 28 years began to fall.
Gutenberg's Press and the Multiplication of Words
Johannes Gutenberg's movable-type press let a single workshop produce more copies of a text in a week than a scribe could hand-copy in a lifetime.
The Machine Built to Crack an Unbreakable Code
At Bletchley Park, mathematicians and engineers built early computing machines to break German Enigma-encrypted communications, work later credited with shortening the Second World War.
Stonehenge: Moved by Hand, Purpose Still Debated
Some of Stonehenge's bluestones were transported roughly 150 miles from Wales, a feat of Neolithic engineering whose exact purpose, calendar, temple, or gathering place, is still debated.
The Storming of the Bastille and the Start of a Revolution
The Bastille held only a handful of prisoners by 1789, but seizing this symbol of royal authority became the spark that is still marked as the start of the French Revolution.