Rutherford B. Hayes

Roscoe Conkling was a successful politician and an able lawyer. But the colorful and irascible senator had no desire to serve on the high court.

The 1876 presidential election, Potter Committee, and European perceptions.

When the river freezes, lives change.

The polarizing dessert that people love to hate became a Christmas mainstay thanks, in part, to the U.S. Postal Service.

How the Tragedy of the Commons theory played out in reality.

George Henry Thomas, southerner in blue.

A cat named Miss Pussy! A racist parrot! Benjamin Harrison’s possums, which he later ate!

The selection of African American Sen. Hiram Revels in 1870 offered great hope — but it was soon dashed.

The Texas senator claims to be moved by the spirit of 1876, but he’s just another huckster playing a risky game with democracy.

A pair of new books about US Marshal Wyatt Earp are now out. Only one of them shoots straight.

Why does the U.S. Army name its bases after generals it defeated?

It’s doubtful even Alexander Hamilton believed what he was selling in “Federalist No. 68.”

In the 19th century, a tariff dispute actually came to blows, with 30 million frozen herring caught in the middle.

What a forgotten commander in chief can teach Donald Trump.

In the case of Chester Arthur, the story is one of surprising redemption.

Twenty-one historians explain which moments in history are closest to the Trump election - and what we can learn.

How the objects in the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia can help us understand today's prejudice and racial violence.

Migration further west began almost immediately after Reconstruction ended, as Black Americans initiated the "Great Exodus" outside the South toward Kansas.

The incredible story of how a disgraced Civil War general became one of the best-selling novelists in American history.

An hour of stories about a few high-stakes inaugurations from the past.