Mexico

Christopher Weaver describes how one of the creators of modern Soviet Russia met a hideous death in Mexico.

Glyndwr Williams describes how, in 1743, Commodore Anson captured a galleon in the Pacific Ocean, containing more than one million pieces of eight.

Mexico declared its independence from Spanish rule on 13 September 1813.

Bertha Katzenstein traces the footsteps of early Spanish and Mexican arrivals into California.

Roger Howell discovers that the Spaniards who conquered the Americas had little real understanding of the civilizations that they overthrew.

The earliest explorers to uncover the ancient Maya civilisation in Central America could not believe that it owed its creation to the indigenous population, whom they saw as incapable savages. Nigel Richardson explains how this view changed.

Hugh Latimer unearths the role of the rubber plant in the story of empire and Malayan nation-building.

Is the world going to end this week? Probably not, but just in case, here's a primer on Mayan history.

Between the fourth and the sixteenth centuries two great Mayan civilizations arose and declined in Central America.

In the sixteenth century a Spanish bishop of Yucatán was active in preserving and also in destroying the records of Maya civilization.