Civil War

H. J. Heinz started a condiment empire. His savvy marketing helped.

There Never Were 57 Varieties of Heinz Ketchup

The '57' doesn't actually refer to <I>anything</i>

Portrait of a Civil War soldier group, circa 1861-65.

The Most 'Realistic' Civil War Novel Was Written Three Decades After It Ended

By an author who wasn't even alive when it occurred

A typical 17th-century coffeehouse scene. Controversial, right?

This 17th-Century "Women's Petition Against Coffee" Probably Wasn't About Women, or Coffee

It probably wasn't written by angry, sex-deprived wives–although stranger things have happened

An engraving from later in the 1880s shows rioters burning an orphanage for black children.

The Civil War Draft Riots Brought Terror to New York’s Streets

This dark event remains the largest civil insurrection—the Civil War itself aside—in American history

A Minecraft rendering of the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C. Participants in Minecraft: Education Edition online festivities will be able to let their own imaginations run wild this Museum Day.

Fans of Minecraft Are Sure to Dig this Nationwide Museum Fest

The indie hit is the perfect game for a day devoted to unearthing knowledge

The room where Abraham Lincoln died in the Petersen House

House Where Lincoln Died to Close for Renovations

The Petersen House, across the street from Ford's Theatre, will undergo preservation work to keep it as a museum of the president's final moments

In Charlottesville, Virginia, city workers drape a tarp over the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Emancipation park to symbolize the city's mourning for Heather Heyer, killed while protesting a white nationalist rally in August.

We Legitimize the 'So-Called' Confederacy With Our Vocabulary, and That's a Problem

Tearing down monuments is only the beginning to understanding the false narrative of Jim Crow

The H.L. Hunley, a confederate Civil War era submarine, sits in its water tank at the Hunley Lab in North Charleston, SC.

One Scientist May Have Finally Figured Out the Mystery of Why a Civil War Submarine Sank

A Navy engineer used creative modeling and her knowledge of underwater explosions to tackle the century-old Hunley conundrum

Unionville today: The photographer used a process called intaglio printing to give her pictures an antique appearance.

After the Civil War, African-American Veterans Created a Home of Their Own: Unionville

One-hundred-fifty years later, the Maryland town remains a bastion of resilience and a front line in the battle over Confederate monuments

Stone Mountain Confederate Memorial features General Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis—and has stirred up controversy in Georgia for years.

What Will Happen to Stone Mountain, America’s Largest Confederate Memorial?

The Georgia landmark is a testament to the enduring legacy of white supremacy

Workers use a crane to lift the monument dedicated to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney from outside Maryland State House, in Annapolis, Maryland, early Friday morning.

Statue of Roger B. Taney Removed From Maryland State House

Taney, the fifth chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinion in the infamous Dred Scott case

Looking at the east frieze of the Confederate Monument at Arlington National Cemtery in Arlington, Virginia, in the United States

The Pernicious Myth of the ‘Loyal Slave’ Lives on in Confederate Memorials

Statues don’t need to venerate military leaders of the Civil War to promulgate false narratives

Workers remove the Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson monument in Wyman Park early Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2017.

Baltimore Quietly Removes Four Confederate Monuments

Mayor Catherine Pugh said the statues “needed to come down”

A print from Harper’s showing Quantrill’s raid on Lawrence, Kansas, August 21, 1863

The Wealthy Activist Who Helped Turn “Bleeding Kansas” Free

Newly minted abolitionist Amos Adams Lawrence funneled much of his fortune into a battle he thought America couldn’t afford to lose

Cloth Smuggled Out of Syrian Prison Bears Witness to Atrocities Wrought by the Civil War

The U.S. Holocaust Museum has received the cloth scraps, which bears the names of 82 inmates written in chicken bones, rust, and blood

Alcatraz Island as it looks today.

Alcatraz Wasn't Always 'Uncle Sam's Devil's Island'

Though it was a prison for more than a century, it didn't become the famous maximum-security penitentiary until 1934

William Maples holds a bone fragment during a presentation about the Romanov Investigations, circa 1992.

William R. Maples Popularized Forensic Anthropology Long Before CSI

Maples worked on a number of high-profile cases that helped to bring the field of forensic anthropology to prominence

Logs discovered under 168th Avenue in Grand Haven Township, Michigan

“Corduroy Road” From Civil War Era Found in Michigan

Used to stabilize swampy pathways, corduroy roads are among the earliest types of manufactured thoroughfares

While presidents have the power to pardon, their decision to use it isn't always popular. Just look at this anti-Ford button made in response to his pardoning of Richard Nixon.

A Brief History of Presidential Pardons

The power bestowed upon the chief executive to excuse past misdeeds has involved a number of famous Americans

A member of the 9th Cavalry circa 1890.

Three Things to Know About the Buffalo Soldiers

These segregated regiments offered black soldiers a chance to fight for their rights

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