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History / Biography

In the foreground stand foundation remnants of a house where soldiers once searched for Jews. The family hid refugees in a secret compartment constructed between the interior walls.

The Dispossessed

This French Town Has Welcomed Refugees for 400 Years

For centuries, the people of the mountain village of Chambon-sur-Lignon have opened their arms to the world’s displaced

Standing Rock #2: Oil-pipeline protester Mychal Thompson in North Dakota, in November 2016. Her quote, in Navajo, reads, “To be of the people means you must have reverence and love for all of the resources and all of the beauties of this world.”

The Dispossessed

Pushed to the Margins, These Brave People Are Pushing Back

From the American West to the Middle East, the powerless face stark choices when confronted by the powerful

The Russian Imperial Family on the steps of the Catherine Palace

Russian Revolution

A Century Ago, the Romanovs Met a Gruesome End

Helen Rappaport’s new book investigates if the family could have been saved

Debs campaigning for the presidency before a freight-yard audience in 1912.

World War I: 100 Years Later

When America’s Most Prominent Socialist Was Jailed for Speaking Out Against World War I

After winning 6 percent of the vote in the 1912 presidential election, Eugene Debs ran afoul of the nation’s new anti-sedition laws

Monticello's main house and South Wing

Putting Enslaved Families’ Stories Back in the Monticello Narrative

An oral history project deepens our understanding of U.S. history by sharing accounts of the community owned by Thomas Jefferson

John Mackay made a fortune in the mining industry.

The Mining Millionaire Americans Couldn’t Help But Love

Unlike the other one-percenters of his age, John Mackay gained his countrymen’s admiration. But in an ironic twist, it means he’s little known today

Robert F. Kennedy accepts the Democratic nomination as a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 1964.

Why Robert Kennedy Transformed From a Conservative Into a Liberal Champion of Civil Rights

A professor of political history looks at how RFK, assassinated 50 years ago this week, was an improbable hero to the left

Elsie Janis (1889-1956), an American singer, songwriter, actress, and screenwriter

World War I: 100 Years Later

The Sweetheart of the American Expeditionary Force

During World War I, vaudeville star Elsie Janis travelled to France to bring good cheer to U.S. troops

The bloomer costume

Women Who Shaped History

Amelia Bloomer Didn’t Mean to Start a Fashion Revolution, But Her Name Became Synonymous With Trousers

In the 1850s, women’s rights activists briefly adopted a new style in an effort to liberate themselves from heavy dresses

Millicent Brown broke the racial barrier at a Charleston, South Carolina, high school. “This was the challenge of our day,” says Brown, a historian and activist.

The Defiant Ones

As young girls, they fought the fierce battle to integrate America’s schools half a century ago

Josiah Henson as a young man at left, and at right, at age 87, photographed in Boston on June 17, 1876

The Story of Josiah Henson, the Real Inspiration for ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’

Before there was the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a formerly enslaved African-American living in Canada wrote a memoir detailing his experience

Elinor Powell (right) with a fellow nurse at POW Camp Florence in Arizona, circa 1944-1945

Women Who Shaped History

The Army’s First Black Nurses Were Relegated to Caring for Nazi Prisoners of War

Prohibited from treating white GIs, the women felt betrayed by the country they sought to serve

Waldorf Astoria Hotel

What Made Oscar Tschirky the King of Gilded Age New York

During his long tenure as maître d’ at the famed Waldorf Hotel, Oscar had the city’s elite at his fingertips

A massive task force—150 full-time personnel from the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service—hunted the Unabomber.

When the Unabomber Was Arrested, One of the Longest Manhunts in FBI History Was Finally Over

Twenty years ago, the courts gave Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences, thereby ending more than a decade of terror.

Civil rights leader Rev. Ralph Abernathy, in short sleeves, leads the Poor People's March to the edge of the grounds of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, June 24, 1968. Abernathy and his followers from Resurrection City marched to the Agriculture Department and then to the Capitol.

Remembering Resurrection City and the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968

Lenneal Henderson and thousands of other protesters occupied the National Mall for 42 days during the landmark civil rights protest

These charms are among the 20 found on a bracelet donated by Holocaust survivor Greta Perlman

This Remarkable Charm Bracelet Chronicles a Life Inside a Concentration Camp

Greta Perlman survived the Holocaust. The mementos she saved offer clues about how Jews endured the indignities and horrors of the Nazis

Bill Kennedy placed second in France’s Chateau-Thierry-to-Paris relay race, in 1919.

When “Bricklayer Bill” Won the 1917 Boston Marathon, It Was a Victory For All Irish Americans

William J. Kennedy crossed the finish line wrapped in the American flag

Martin Luther King Jr.‘s dream – which alternated between shattered and hopeful – can be traced back to Hughes’ poetry.

In His Speeches, MLK Carefully Evoked the Poetry of Langston Hughes

To avoid being labeled a communist sympathizer, King had to distance himself from Hughes, but he still managed to channel the controversial poet

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1900–1944). Drawing of the little prince on the edge of a cliff. New York, 1942 or 1943. Pen and brown ink on onionskin paper. From Joseph Cornell’s Saint-Exupéry dossier.

The Beloved Classic Novel “The Little Prince” Turns 75 Years Old

Written in wartime New York City, the children’s book brings out the small explorer in everyone

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