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 ...

For a long time, I didn’t know that what my mother was doing—playing the so-called Italian lottery—was illegal. She certainly didn’t look like a criminal.

This story appears in the March/April 2017 issue of National Geographic History magazine. During the 1700s, a European Grand Tour was a rite of passage for the sons of wealthy families.