American History

U.S. Marines search for Haitian rebels in 1919.

The United States Once Invaded and Occupied Haiti

In 1915, American troops began a 19-year, unofficial occupation of the Caribbean nation

The 7 Line is currently undergoing a system upgrade from one that was installed in the 1930s to one run by computers.

NYC Subway Technology Goes Way Back...to the 1930s

America's busiest subway system relies on vintage machines

70 Years Ago, a B-25 Bomber Crashed Into the Empire State Building

14 people died in the accident

An aerial view of part of the Idaho National Laboratory.

Tour the World’s First Nuclear Power Plant

The historic site in a remote desert is now a museum where visitors can see the instruments that made nuclear history

Scientists have for the first time identified the four people buried in Jamestown's first church. They are (from left) minister Robert Hunt, Sir Ferdinando Wainman, Captain Gabriel Archer and Captain William West.

New Jamestown Discovery Reveals the Identities of Four Prominent Settlers

The findings by Smithsonian scientists dig up the dynamics of daily life in the first permanent British settlement in the colonies

Visit D.C.'s Best Off-the-Beaten-Path Historic Homes and Gardens

History, nature and culture combine at these fascinating estates and gardens in our nation's capital

The National Museum of American History in its new exhibition "American Enterprise," displays a prime example of Stephen Burrough's art—a $1 certificate on the Union Bank of Boston, dated 1807, signed by Burroughs as cashier, and later stamped COUNTERFEIT.

The Entertaining Saga of the Worst Crook in Colonial America

Stephen Burroughs was a thief, a counterfeiter and a convicted criminal. A rare piece of his fake currency is in the collections

Brazil's Surui people, like the man pictured above, share ancestry with indigenous Australians, new evidence suggests.

A DNA Search for the First Americans Links Amazon Groups to Indigenous Australians

The new genetic analysis takes aim at the theory that just one founding group settled the Americas

In the 1960s, One Man Took Washington D.C.’s Rat Problem Into His Own Hands, Literally

And challenged the city’s race and wealth divide in the process

Scripps oceanographer Eric Terrill and BentProp founder Pat Scannon investigate the main fuselage of a TBM Avenger lost 70 years ago during a bombing mission near Palau.

Divers Turn to Robots for Help Scouring the Pacific for Long-Lost WWII Soldiers

An ongoing effort to recover those missing in action teams military historians, volunteers and scientists

Workmen constructing the Statue of Liberty in Bartholdi's Parisian warehouse workshop in the winter of 1882.

The Statue of Liberty Arrived in New York in 350 Pieces

Luckily, she also came with an instruction manual

In this intricate mechanical bank, the user balances a coin on the miniature man's gun, which then shoots the coin into a slot in the tree.

One Man's Obsession With Antique Toys Resulted in a Museum

The Portland, Oregon, attraction is more than just the stuff of Kidd's play

The Allosaurus was a true terror of the Jurassic world.

What Killed the Dinosaurs in Utah's Giant Jurassic Death Pit?

Paleontologists are gathering evidence that may help crack the 148-million-year-old mystery, including signs of poisoned predators

The Stories Behind Disneyland's Hidden Wonders

As the amusement park celebrates its 60th anniversary, here's the truth behind some of its more unusual features

Eric Muenter bombed the U.S. Capitol building in July 1915.

In 1915 a Former Harvard Professor Tried to Blow Up the U.S. Capitol

Driven by anti-war sentiment, he went on to carry out several terrorist attacks in NYC to protest U.S. involvement in WWI

Apple I computer, 1976, Steve Jobs (Patent no. 7166791) and Steve Wozniak (Patent No. 4136359). The Apple I computer became a leader in personal computing. Originally marketed to hobbyists only primarily as a fully assembled circuit board, purchasers had to add their own case and monitor in order to create a working computer.

Tracing the History of American Invention, From the Telegraph to the Apple I

More than 70 artifacts, from an artificial heart to an Etch A Sketch, grace the entryway to the American History Museum's new innovation wing

Benjamin Rush, prominent colonial physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote a treatise on alcohol in 1784 that still influences how medicine views substance abuse today.

Meet the Doctor Who Convinced America to Sober Up

Meet Benjamin Rush, father of the temperance movement, signer of the Declaration of Independence

Lee's Maycomb, indelibly evoked in the novel that sells a million copies annually, endures in the small-town reality of Monroeville.

What's Changed, and What Hasn't, in the Town That Inspired 'To Kill a Mockingbird'

Traveling back in time to visit Harper Lee's hometown, the setting of her 1960 masterpiece and the controversial sequel hitting bookstores soon

Harper's Ferry, West Virginia (top) and Chickamauga, Georgia (bottom) were the sites of two Civil War battles.

A Photographic Requiem for America's Civil War Battlefields

Walking far-flung battlefields to picture the nation's defining tragedy in a modern light

A rendering of the installation, which officially launches June 28. Seventeen artist-made stars will glow each night in a constellation above an abandoned castle.

An Abandoned Island Now Glows Star-Bright Under a New Constellation

Artist Melissa McGill creates a luminous public art project above a ruined castle on a mysterious piece of land in the Hudson River

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