From Caesar to Napoleon, the Pyramids to the Parthenon, the Trojan War to the Civil War—National Geographic History draws readers in with more than 5,000 years of people, places, and things to ...

This story appears in the March/April 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Throughout history, small states have come out of nowhere, and rapidly become great powers. This was the ...

This story appears in the November/December 2016 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Sparta’s enemies, when facing the intimidating Spartan forces, would see a wall of shields ...

This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Where do babies come from? The Aztecs’ answer to the classic child’s question was that they came ...

This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Depicted on a tetradrachm, the Olympian Dionysus was the god of wine, an important part of the ...

Photograph by Werner Forman, GTRES This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. Mesopotamia—“the land between two rivers”—gave birth to ...

This story appears in the January/February 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. On a spring day in 1480, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia ordered various astrologers to his home in Rome to ...

This story appears in the March 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. The master spent ... For much of its history, the temple was essentially a wealthy estate with a well-trained private ...