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What Would Jefferson Say About White Supremacists Descending Upon his University?

Jefferson had a complicated relationship with white supremacy.

How Jackie Robinson Helped Defeat a Trump-Like Candidate

The baseball great warned of lasting repercussion for black voters during Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign.

The Confederate General Who Was Erased

There's a reason you won't find many monuments in the South to one of Robert E. Lee's most able deputies.

Examining 20th-Century America’s Obsession With Poor Posture

A new book explores the nation’s now-faded preoccupation with the 'epidemic' of hunched bodies.
Trump looks at border wall construction prototypes.
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The Militarization of Immigration Enforcement is Not Unique to Trump

Angry that ICE is ripping families apart? Don’t just blame Trump. Blame Clinton, Bush and Obama, too.

Why Trump Could Pardon Jack Johnson When Obama Wouldn’t

On the white privilege of being able to ignore the racial context of Johnson's Jim Crow-era conviction.

Lessons From the Gilded Age

America today has a lot in common with that bygone era of monopolies and gross inequality. But will the country respond similarly?
Leon Bridges singing on stage.

'They Put Us in a Little Box': How Racial Tensions Shape Modern Soul Music

While white Americana singers have infused more soul into their sound, black artists still feel restricted by limited expectations.

The Discovery of the Mental Institution

Mental health care has never been adequate in the U.S.

The Souring of American Exceptionalism

Commitment to liberalism once distinguished the U.S. Now, it’s the disdain of elites for their fellow citizens that sets the nation apart.

No 'King of Kings'

Edits that colonists made to prayer books during the American Revolution embodied the shift to independence.

How Profits From Opium Shaped 19th-Century Boston

In a city steeped in history, very few residents understand the powerful legacy of opium money.

How Ice Cream Helped America at War

For decades, the military made sure soldiers had access to the treat—including spending $1 million on a floating ice-cream factory.
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The United States Needs More Bureaucracy, Not Less

If too much partisanship is the problem, more bureaucracy might be the answer.
Bottles of Fanta with German labels.

Coca-Cola Collaborated with the Nazis in the 1930s, and Fanta is the Proof

The not-so-sweet history.
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The Founding Fathers Made Our Schools Public. We Should Keep Them That Way.

They believed public schools were the foundation of a virtuous republic.
James K. Johnson and Dwight D. Eisenhower on an inspection tour of an air base.
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Trump Threatened to Nuke North Korea. Did Ike Do the same?

The myth of Ike’s nuclear recklessness could lead us into war.

Denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula: Reviewing the Precedents

Nuclear disarmament talks with the North Koreans go back at least a quarter-century. How did we get to Singapore?

Jefferson’s Monticello Finally Gives Sally Hemings Her Place in Presidential History

New exhibits put slavery at the center of Monticello's story, and make it clear that Jefferson was the father of Hemings' children.

The Return of Monopoly

With Amazon on the rise and a business tycoon in the White House, can a new generation of Democrats return the party to its trust-busting roots?

The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the U.S. Antitrust Movement

A short history puts contemporary anti-monopoly movements in context.
Demonstrator with sign that reads "Journalism is not a crime"
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When the War on the Press Turns Violent, Democracy Itself is at Risk

The bloody history of attacks on American journalists.
Children march in a "silent protest" parade in New York city.

One Hundred Years After the Silent Parade

Here's what we've learned about mass protests since the 1917 Silent Parade.

She Thought She Was Irish — Until a DNA Test Opened a 100-Year-Old Mystery

How Alice Collins Plebuch’s foray into “recreational genomics” upended a family tree.

What We Still Get Wrong About What Happened in Detroit in 1967

One of the key factors in what happened in 1967 in Detroit has long gone overlooked
Charlie Chaplin and other actors in a silent film.

Curing (Silent) Movies of Deafness?

In many ways, silent film was an art form entirely different from the "talkies" we enjoy today.

A Brief History of the Great American Coloring Book

Where coloring books came from says something about what they are today.

Comparing Truman's Hiroshima Statement to Trump's North Korea Ultimatum

What to know before equating "fire and fury" to the "rain of ruin."

Metaphors and Malignancy in Senator McCain’s Cancer Diagnosis

How does one talk about cancer, something so unpleasant that is almost always linked with death, and where do metaphors come in?
Edythe Eyde

She Risked Jail to Create A Magazine for Lesbians

Decades before "The L Word," Edythe Eyde knew her magazine for lesbians — Vice Versa — was illegal.

How Our Grandmothers Disappeared Into History

A historian turned novelist ponders the absence of women from America's historical archives.

Colonialism Did Not Just Create Slavery: It Changed Geology

Researchers suggest effects of the Colonial Era can be detected in rocks or even air.

New Age Activism: Maria W. Stewart and Black Lives Matter

Black women have always been equal partners in, if not central to, the tradition of Black protest and liberation movements.

The TV That Created Donald Trump

Rewatching “The Apprentice,” the show that made his Presidency possible.
Putin and Trump.
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How a WWI-era Law Set the Stage for the Trump-Russia Controversy

And why Congress should do more to wrest back control of economic sanctions.

From Boston's Resistance to an American Revolution

How a Boston rebellion became an American Revolution is a story too seldom told because it is one we take for granted.

Police Dogs and Anti-Black Violence

Police brutality has been a hot topic in contemporary society, but when did this all really start and where did dogs get involved?

The Umpire Strikes Out: Baseball Music and Labor

The classic baseball hit "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has a lot more to do with U.S. history than one might think.

The Lost Cause Rides Again

The prospective series takes as its premise an ugly truth that black Americans are forced to live every day: What if the Confederacy wasn’t wholly defeated?

We Don’t Need a TV Show About the Confederacy Winning. In Many Ways, it Did.

HBO's “Confederate” assumes America is much further from its slaveholding past than it really is.

Artificial Persons

The long road to "Citizens United."
Reagan giving his "tear down this wall" speech at the Brandenburg Gate in 1987.

Ronald Reagan and the Cold War: What Mattered Most

By seeking to talk to Soviet leaders and end the Cold War, Reagan helped to win it.

How the FCC's Net Neutrality Plan Breaks With 50 Years of History

The scholar who coined the phrase "net neutrality" explains why the agency's latest move represents such a radical break.
China and Korea shaking hands, and a dove and a missile.

Important Moments in U.S.-Korean Relations

From the first exchange of gunfire in 1865 to the 1953 ceasefire, and beyond.
Donald Trump holding up a bill he signed.
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Ceding Power to the Executive is Backfiring on Free-Trade Advocates

Liberal Democrats sidestepped Congress to bring free trade to the U.S. Now, Trump is able to do the same thing to destroy it.
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The Truth About Trade Wars: Everyone Loses, and the Damage Is Hard To Undo

President Trump is repeating the mistakes of the Great Depression.

Black Athletes, Anthem Protests, and the Spectacle of Patriotism

The NFL's response to player protests reflects decades of League and U.S. attempts to portray false images of post-racial harmony.

Food in America and American Foodways

Rachel Herrmann asks whether there’s such a thing as “American food.”

We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in GIFs

Are you part of the problem?
Men in drag, 1915.

Transgender Men Who Lived a Century Ago Prove Gender Has Always Been Fluid

In her new book, ‘True Sex,’ historian Emily Skidmore looks at their lives and how society has treated them.
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