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History

Kraft advertisement in the Ladies’ Home Journal, 1948

A Brief History of America’s Appetite for Macaroni and Cheese

Popularized by Thomas Jefferson, this versatile dish fulfills our nation’s quest for the ‘cheapest protein possible’

Nuclear material in drums in a storage area of Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center in 1991.

How Saddam and ISIS Killed Iraqi Science

Within decades the country’s scientific infrastructure went from world-class to shambles. What happened?

On May 17, 2018, in a gift to posterity, the organizer, publisher and political strategist Mark Segal donated 16 cubic feet of personal papers and artifacts, including the poster above.

Mark Segal, LGBTQ Iconoclast, Activist and Disruptor, Donates Lifetime of Papers and Artifacts

Following the 1969 Stonewall Raid, Segal built a life around protest and the quest for equal rights for minority groups

Silhouettes of Sylvia Drake and Charity Bryant of Weybridge, Vermont, (c. 1805-1815) is possibly the first depiction of a same sex couple.

Rarely Seen 19th-Century Silhouette of a Same-Sex Couple Living Together Goes On View

A new show, featuring the paper cutouts, reveals unheralded early Americans, as well as contemporary artists working with this old art form

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

When Paper Clothing Was the Perfect Fit

A war-weary world needed a new wardrobe, and this cheap, washable attire seemed to rise to the occasion

Agreements like the Treaty With the Delawares (1778) are powerful reminders of American Indian nations' legal right to territorial sovereignty.

Why the Very First Treaty Between the United States and a Native People Still Resonates Today

The Treaty With the Delawares, signed in 1778, has arrived at the National Museum of the American Indian

With fingers intertwined and mouths gleefully thrown open, the three maidens dance around the Art Nouveau sculpture by Walter Schott.

The Lost Maidens of Berlin

A decades-long quest for one of the most intriguing artworks looted by the Nazis leads to the courtyard of a posh hotel in the German countryside

An aerial photograph shows the new museum’s proximity to the ancient arena.

Europe

Travel to Southern France for a Dazzling Taste of Ancient Rome

A new museum in Nimes pays tribute to the grandeur of the Empire

At its peak in 1948, the women’s pro baseball league attracted more than 900,000 spectators.

Seventy-Five Years Ago, Women’s Baseball Players Took the Field

An Indiana slugger was one of the athletes who “hit the dirt in the skirt” and changed Americans’ view of women

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

The Factory That Oreos Built

A new owner for the New York City landmark offers a tasty opportunity to recap a crème-filled history

A Curtiss "Jenny" biplane carrying mail for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before takeoff from the Polo Grounds in Washington, D.C.

Delivering the Mail Was Once One of the Riskiest Jobs in America

A new exhibition at the National Postal Museum honors the nation’s first airmail pilots

Reebok marketed their slim, pliable Freestyle shoes to aerobics lovers in the 1980s.

A Brief History of America’s Obsession With Sneakers

Invented for athletics, sneakers eventually became status symbols and an integral part of street style

Ceramic box base with a Chinese inscription that mentions a place, Jianning Fu, which dates from AD 1162 to 1278. From the Java Sea Shipwreck.

New Research

An 800-Year-Old Shipwreck Helps Archaeologists Piece Together Asia’s Maritime Trade

A new date for the Java Sea shipwreck could shed light on the politics of Chinese trade routes

Busting dams

How a British Engineer Made a Bomb That Could Bounce On Water

Seventy-five years ago, Barnes Wallis masterminded a famous World War II attack that involved skipping a bomb into German dams

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

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