Excerpts

When most U.S. nationals in the early republic thought of the Pacific Ocean, they conjured lands instead.

How Sioux Falls became a controversial Gilded Age “Mecca for the mismated.”

In 1897, the 25th Infantry Regiment Bicycle Corps embarked on a 1,900-mile journey from Montana to Missouri.

Emancipation Days symbolized America’s attempt to free the enslaved across the nation. But those days were unable to prevent new forms of economic slavery.

We tell the story of the Jane Collective, which provided thousands of illegal abortions fin Chicago rom 1969 to 1973, before Roe v. Wade.

A Red-Black alliance defended political prisoners and drew attention to death and prison sentences disproportionately handed out to people of color.

The recently rereleased 1979 film can teach today’s workers how to throw their weight around.

Mired in a funding crisis — and the target of politicians — the hearings transformed public broadcasting.

For 80 years, wieners have been an essential component of foreign policy.

40 years after Vincent Chin’s murder, the struggle against anti-Asian hate continues.

In the 19th century, Native American nations were early pioneers in constitutional democracy.

Art historians, legislators, and activists have long decried themes of white supremacy in the art collection of the U.S. Capitol. Can this place be decolonized?

The rhetoric that the Nazis used to denounce gay men mirrors that coming from the right in the United States today. Both view queerness as a contagion.

Researchers combed through 19th-century records and found evidence of the species, which joined a menagerie that included Galapagos tortoises and kangaroos.

How the Southern Baptist Convention’s views on abortion changed during the 1980s, when a more conservative wing seized control of the denomination.

Looking back at the short but deep friendship of John Brown and Harriet Tubman, who gave their lives to the abolitionist cause.

Wealthy planter Samuel Townshend wanted to leave this estate to his children when he died—an ordinary enough wish. The trouble was: his children were enslaved.

A serialized biography of Jane Grant (1892-1972), first woman reporter at The New York Times and co-founder of The New Yorker.

In Oregon in the 1960s, the debate over capital punishment hinged on shifting interpretations of the gendered female body.

In the 1920s, Washingtonians dealt with the summer heat by going to the nearest beach...at the Tidal Basin.

In settling a rivalry between Maryland and Virginia and preventing individual states from getting into bed with France and Spain, maybe the Articles weren't a failure after all.

The Wire — both stylish and smart, follows unforgettable characters woven into a striking portrait of the depredations of capitalism in one US city.

Noam Chomsky discusses the hypocrisies of US empire and why if we really wanted to build a decent society, we’d immediately slash the massive military budget.

Using a custom encryption scheme based on musical notation, US musicians smuggled information into and out of the USSR.

"The tallest trees at Roaring Run remember sending down taproots even as the furnace stones were still warm. Desecration is not ironclad."

At the turn of the century, two important books wrestled with the question of how a nation "conceived in liberty" should engage with the world.

"History​ is written by the victors, but diligent and continual silencing is required to maintain its claims on the present and future."

Observing the visible features of Martian landscapes, Giovanni Schiaparelli began seeing things almost immediately.

For years, the idea seemed immoral and dangerous.

Since 1892, the United States has deported more immigrants (over 57 million) than any other nation.

Hannah Zeavin’s history of remote and distance psychotherapy asks us whether the medium matters more than the message.

"A lot has been hidden from Black Americans. And so there is always a longing to know who you are and where you come from.”

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.

The Weisman family objected to religious prayers at a 1986 school graduation. The case went to the Supreme Court, which is again ruling on prayer in schools.

How a 37-word clause tucked inside a new education legislation reshape women’s sports forever.

The Julian Assange case exposes how changing concepts unintentionally broadened a law.

In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.

As the deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment lapsed in June 1982, the amendment's foes celebrated, while its proponents looked to the future.

These communities rely almost entirely on tourism for their existence—yet too much tourism, not to mention climate change, can destroy them.

Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress enacted several laws restricting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans.

“The schoolhouse door cannot be closed to one of modern society’s most marginalized, most vilified groups.”

Bohemian Greenwich Village and the secret club that sparked modern feminism.

Black generosity has always been vital to the freedom struggle.

Before Juneteenth became an official federal holiday, 94-year-old Opal Lee was on a mission.

The rights and responsibilities of 17th-century fatherhood in England's North American colonies.

The holiday’s lack of history allowed activists to give it meaning after America’s divorce laws changed.

The controversy between players and owners frequently brought baseball into the federal courts between the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries.

As the gunmakers’ markets matured through the Civil War era, some began mastering the art of product promotion, following the lead set by Samuel Colt.

When horses gallop, do all four hooves ever leave the ground at once? This episode of The Disappearing Spoon recounts the saga that led to the answer.

Scripted from front-page news, the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper plays were part entertainment, part protest, and entirely educational.