Excerpts

But did they backfire?

Until the mid-20th century, Oregon was perhaps the most racist place outside the southern states, possibly even of all the states.

Colonial Williamsburg has acknowledged to the LGBTQ community that people like them “have always existed.”

The beloved Christmas short story may have been dashed off on deadline but its core message has endured.

Leila collects art that’s made of human hair and displays it to the public at a museum bearing her name in Independence, Missouri.

If kissing was deemed necessary during the flu pandemic, a handkerchief should be used to prevent direct contact with the lips.

While segregation was a shameful period in baseball history, the Negro Leagues were a resounding success and an immense source of pride for black America.

The revolution wasn’t only an effort to establish independence from the British—it was also a push to preserve slavery and suppress Native American resistance.

A digital exhibit from the collections of the Strong National Museum of Play.

When four black men staged at sit-in at a Greensboro Woolworth's 40 years ago, Charles Bess was the busboy.

Three decades ago, California was the launchpad for a virulent strain of anti-immigrant politics that soon spread nationwide.

The Great American Pyramid was supposed to give the Tennessee city an architectural landmark for the ages. Instead, it got a very large sporting goods store.

For decades, the CIA read the encrypted communications of allies and adversaries.

The most popular songs today are sadder than they were 50 years ago: can cultural evolution explain this negative turn?

The reality of the early gold-rush prospectors was not nearly as benevolent as the mascot’s wide smile may suggest.

Zadie Smith on Kara Walker, blackness and public art.

To fully understand what has gone wrong since 9/11, it is necessary to rewind the tape to that moment just before.

We investigated a dataset of more than 30,000 high school yearbook photos from 1930–2013 to find out when big hair was at its height.

Betrayal. Paranoia. Cowardice. We've been here before.

On the 30th anniversary, we can see that it was an ideological project, with the New Right reasserting the righteousness of militarism and markets.

If we want to fight capitalism, the US left has to figure out how to confront US empire.

George Kennan discusses the steps that are being taken in regards to the conflict with Iraq and questions President Bush's strategy.

As José Ferrer was being handed his Oscar—making him the first Latino actor to win—he was being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Why Lincoln’s "one war at a time" doctrine saved the Union.

The way America is ending its War in Afghanistan is comparable to how it pulled out of the conflict in Vietnam.

Carter’s speech lays out his commitment to implement human rights into U.S. foreign policy.

President Clinton’s address revealed the strength of NATO and publicly signaled a post-Cold War shift in U.S. foreign policy.

Oscar night has become a platform for stars to pitch political causes.

They played essential behind-the-scenes roles as the American movie industry was taking off. What happened?

The value of shame in objects.

A cheeky biography of the first president pulls no punches.

Forty years ago he announced a new American doctrine of aggressive Middle East interventionism that never went away.

A day-by-day account of the historic summit in Yalta, seventy-five years later.

The sick history of the U.S. campaign song.

A new history of Andrew Johnson’s trial reminds us the impeachment is a tool to constrain executive abuse of power and publicize dissent on matters of policy.

William Dorsey Swann fought for queer freedom a century before Stonewall.

What makes a hero? Why do we remember some stories and not others?

Rosa Parks discusses her refusal to give up a seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955.

"Every film about war ends up being pro-war," Francois Truffaut once said.

The Cold War and today.

From rum to cakes to rowdy parades, election day was a time for gathering and celebration.

Stories about the past can help communities create an identity of which they can be proud. This was certainly the case at Christiana.

Designed as a bucolic working-class suburb of St. Louis, the nearly all-black town of Centreville now floods with raw sewage every time it rains.

Thomas crunches history and Hollywood tropes in his first solo show in L.A.

History shows that this blockbuster event is merely a test of organizational strength in one small state.

By examining the upheaval of the nineteen-thirties, we can recognize similarities between today and democracy's last near-death experience.

West Virginians left Virginia to ensure that the people's voices were heard, not to benefit special interests at the expense of democracy.

“Whenever there’s a tragedy in black America, there’s always been an uptick of black history courses."

Gouverneur Morris’s views changed during the Constitutional Convention — setting a good example for senators today.

Is it possible to write a good Civil War romance?