U.S. History

How First Lady Sarah Polk Set a Model for Conservative Female Power

The popular and pious wife to President James Polk had little use for the nascent suffrage movement

Amazing Grace captivates, says the Smithsonian's Christopher Wilson from the National Museum of American History. It is 90-minutes of "living the genius of Aretha and the passion of the tradition she embraced and represented."

Aretha Franklin’s Decades-Old Documentary Finally Comes to Theaters in 2019

The 2019 nationwide release, 47 years after it was made, means audiences at last will see the Queen of Soul’s transcendent masterpiece

Le Roux’s diplomatic passport from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, under the name Paul Solotshi Calder Le Roux

The Computer Programmer Who Ran a Global Drug Trafficking Empire

A new book uncovers the intricacies of Paul Le Roux’s cartel and how it fueled the opioid epidemic ravaging the U.S. today

At the start of the 1960s, color television was still a relatively novel technology.

Color TV Transformed the Way Americans Saw the World, and the World Saw America

A historian of 20th century media argues that the technological innovation was the quintessential Cold War machine

Ed Sullivan interviews Fidel Castro in January 1959, shortly after dictator Fulgencio Batista had fled the country.

Tony Perrottet's Cuba

When Fidel Castro Charmed the United States

Sixty years ago this month, the romantic victory of the young Cuban revolutionaries amazed the world—and led to a surreal evening on “The Ed Sullivan Show”

The Accidental Invention of Bubble Wrap

Two inventors turned a failed experiment into an irresistibly poppable product that revolutionized the shipping industry

Mary Beth and John Tinker display their black armbands in 1968, over two years after they wore anti-war armbands to school and sparked a legal battle that would make it all the way to the Supreme Court.

The Young Anti-War Activists Who Fought for Free Speech at School

Fifty years later, Mary Beth Tinker looks back at her small act of courage and the Supreme Court case that followed

Mothers and babies gather for a "Better Baby Contest" in Minnesota in 1920.

'Better Babies' Contests Pushed for Much-Needed Infant Health but Also Played Into the Eugenics Movement

Contests around the country judged infants like they would livestock as a motivator for parents to take better care of their children

Enrico Fermi at the blackboard.

How Scientific Chance and a Little Luck Helped Usher in the Nuclear Age

Accidental experiments and chance encounters helped Enrico Fermi produce the first nuclear reactor

People on the scene of the 2.3-million-gallon molasses explosion in Boston's North End

Without Warning, Molasses Surged Over Boston 100 Years Ago

As the city was planning its heroes' welcome for sons returning from World War I, a frightful flood devastated a vast area of the North End

An 1894 advertisement shows the interior of a Pullman dining-car belonging to the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railway. The view through the window depicts the Mosler Safe Company factory in Hamilton, Ohio.

The Rise and Fall of the Sleeping Car King

George Pullman’s unbending business acumen made him a mogul, but also inspired the greatest labor uprising of the 19th century

Woman arranging bric-a-brac in her Arizona home circa 1940

Pop History

How America Tidied Up Before Marie Kondo

From the Progressive Era's social hygiene movement to Netflix self-help reality television

Smallpox raids, like this one in Milwaukee, focused on immigrant families.

History of Now

How New York Separated Immigrant Families in the Smallpox Outbreak of 1901

Vaccinations were administered by police raids, parents and children were torn apart, and the New York City Health Department controlled the narrative

On an 1870 cover of Harper's Weekly, President Ulysses S. Grant is shown greeting the Oglala Chief Red Cloud who came to visit him in Washington, D.C.

Ulysses Grant's Failed Attempt to Grant Native Americans Citizenship

In a forgotten chapter of history, the president and his Seneca Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Ely Parker, fought for Native American rights

Seth Rogen playing Dr. Frankenstein in the upcoming sixth season of "Drunk History"

‘Drunk History’ Bends History in All the Right Directions

The sixth season, premiering January 15, brings a new crop of historical tales to television

"House A" excavation detail

In Land of Lincoln, Long-Buried Traces of a Race Riot Come to the Surface

Archaeologists recently uncovered the remains of five houses that lay witness to the tragedy that set Springfield, Illinois, on fire in 1908

George Washington takes command of the Continental army.

The Plot to Kill George Washington

In <em>The First Conspiracy</em>, thriller writer Brad Meltzer uncovers a real-life story too good to turn into fiction

The Key Marco Cat was unearthed at Marco Island off Florida’s southwestern shore in the late 19th century.

This Hand-Carved Panther Statuette Embodies a Lost Civilization’s Harmony With Nature

Calusa Indians harnessed the bounty of Florida’s estuaries with respect and grace

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America at War

This Map Shows Where in the World the U.S. Military Is Combatting Terrorism

The infographic reveals for the first time that the U.S. is now operating in 40 percent of the world's nations

Damage to the Philippine Legislative Building as a result of World War II. At the time, the Philippines was a U.S. colony.

Telling the History of the U.S. Through Its Territories

In "How to Hide an Empire," Daniel Immerwahr explores America far beyond the borders of the Lower 48

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