National Geographic stories take you on a journey that's always enlightening, often surprising and unfailingly fascinating. This month–a new age of discovery is already here.

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 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 ...

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 October 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine. On a chilly January ... Maidment, a curator at the U.K.’s Natural History Museum, has come with me to tour Crystal ...

This story appears in the June 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine. Thomas Edison liked ... 10 of the most meaningful advances in history—the inventions and innovations responsible ...

This story appears in the September 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. Your National Geographic ... the closest thing to an empire in Maya history. It was ruled by the Snake kings of ...

This story originally published in the June 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine. In the fall of ... to pass himself off as someone else. The history of humankind is strewn with crafty ...

This story appears in the June 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine. From the English ... of Raleigh’s Virginia voyages to the history and culture of the modern world is often forgotten ...

This story appears in the October 2009 issue of National Geographic magazine. History rarely unfolds like a fable. But consider this: A 16th-century Portuguese trading vessel, carrying a fortune ...

This story appears in the January 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine. This is where the cave lions are. And the woolly rhinos, mammoths, and bison, a menagerie of ancient creatures ...