America: History & Life and Historical Abstracts are premiere research databases that more than adequately cover the waterfront in history, area studies, social studies, and current affairs. The first focuses on the United States and Canada and the second, the entire world. 

America: History & Life: covers from pre-history to the present and indexes more than 1,800 major journals in history and related subjects. Sources indexed go back to the 19th century, and many offer an international viewpoint on North American affairs.

Historical Abstracts: covers world history, excluding the United States and Canada. It indexes 2,300 journals, magazines, and books and covers history from the 15th century to the present. It is broad in scope, inlcuding coverage in the humanities and related social sciences, with topics such as the history of education, military history, and women's history. 

Title list for Historical Abstracts

Title list for America: History & Life

Another interesting feature is that many articles are written in foreign languages, from Africaans to Yiddish! Example: If you do a search for Spanish language journals only (in HIstorical Abstracts) and limit to peer-reviewed, you come up with nearly 53,000 results.