The archive, narrowed.

Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan

Twenty years of nation-building collapsed in twenty days.

Rwandan Genocide

Neighbors with machetes. Radio broadcasts with kill lists. A hundred days of hell.

Gulf War

When the world ganged up on Saddam Hussein.

Camp David Accords

Jimmy Carter's thirteen-day hostage situation with two Middle East leaders

Assassination of John F. Kennedy

A president's murder spawned a half-century of doubt.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Korean War Armistice Agreement

Three years of carnage frozen in place, never actually resolved.

Atomic bombing of Hiroshima

America's atomic gamble vaporizes a city and kills 140,000.

V-E Day (German surrender)

Germany signed away twice. Stalin demanded the encore.

Reichstag Fire

How a fire became the match that lit totalitarianism.

Treaty of Versailles

How Allied victors carved up Germany and sowed the seeds of World War II.

Russian Revolution

When bread riots toppled an empire and Lenin seized the moment.

Franco-Prussian War

Emancipation Proclamation

Battle of Gettysburg

Lee's gamble on Northern soil ended in catastrophic defeat.

American Civil War

When Lincoln's election shattered the Union and slavery's fate hung in the balance

Indian Rebellion