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History

These two covers are emblematic of the popular "Golden Hours" papers

The 19th-Century “Golden Hours” Convention Brought Young Readers Together to Meet Their Literary Heroes

The dime novels and story papers entertained boys and launched a popular culture we still consume today

Unfortunately, there’s not an unlimited amount of daylight that we can squeeze out of our clocks.

One Hundred Years Later, the Madness of Daylight Saving Time Endures

The original arguments Congress made for ‘springing ahead’ have been thoroughly debunked. So why are they still being used today?

March 1943: A line at a rationing board in New Orleans, Louisiana

These Photos Captured What Happened When the United States Started to Ration Shoes During WWII

Seventy-five years ago, the Office for Price Administration wanted to limit the use of leather on the homefront

A statue of York with Lewis and Clark in Great Falls, Montana.

York Explored the West With Lewis and Clark, but His Freedom Wouldn’t Come Until Decades Later

In some ways, he encountered a world unavailable to the enslaved. But in others, the journey was rife with danger and degradation

Ralph Teetor (right), cruise control in hand, with William Prossner, president of Perfect Circle, in 1957.

The Sightless Visionary Who Invented Cruise Control

Self-driving cars were far from Ralph Teetor’s mind when he patented his speed control device

Newly elected Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, surrounded by children and grandchildren of members of Congress, holds up her gavel in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007.

Women Who Shaped History

This Historic Gavel Hammers Home the Achievements of Nancy Pelosi… and the United States

The congresswoman donates to the Smithsonian artifacts tied to her first day as Speaker of the House in 2007

The Library of Congress recently digitized this portrait of John Willis Menard, the only known photograph of the African-American trailblazer.

The International Vision of John Willis Menard, First African-American Elected to Congress

Although he was denied his seat in the House, Menard continued his political activism with the goal of uniting people across the Western Hemisphere

Choctaw chief Greenwood LeFlore had 15,000 acres of Mississippi land (above, his Mississippi home Malmaison) and 400 enslaved Africans under his dominion.

How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative

The new exhibition ‘Americans’ at the National Museum of the American Indian prompts a deeper dive for historic truths

"Now," says the American Indian Museum's director Kevin Gover (right with Lonnie Bunch, director of the African American History museum) "some of these institutions are able to produce excellent scholarship that tells a vastly different story from what most Americans learn.”

Two Museum Directors Say It’s Time to Tell the Unvarnished History of the U.S.

History isn’t pretty and sometimes it is vastly different than what we’ve been taught, say Lonnie Bunch and Kevin Gover

Anna Murray Douglass helped Frederick escape from slavery, and continued to support his abolitionist work for the rest of her life.

Women Who Shaped History

The Hidden History of Anna Murray Douglass

Although she’s often overshadowed by her husband, Frederick Douglass, Anna made his work possible

More women than men were left standing after the war and pandemic.

Women Who Shaped History

How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Helped Advance Women’s Rights

While the virus disproportionately affected young men, women stepped into public roles that hadn’t previously been open to them

President Lyndon Johnson constituted the Kerner Commission to identify the genesis of the violent 1967 riots that killed 43 in Detroit and 26 in Newark (above, soldiers in a Newark storefront), while causing fewer casualties in 23 other cities.

The 1968 Kerner Commission Got It Right, But Nobody Listened

Released 50 years ago, the infamous report found that poverty and institutional racism were driving inner-city violence

Ruth (Woodworth) Creveling, US Navy Yeoman (F), 1917-1920

During World War I, Many Women Served and Some Got Equal Pay

Remembering the aspirations, struggles and accomplishments of women who served a century ago

Margaret Hamilton, Katherine Johnson, Sally Ride, Nancy Grace Roman, Mae Jemison

Women Who Shape History: Education Resources

For use in the classroom or your community, a list of lesson plans and other teaching materials on women’s history in America

An endocast revealing the brain of an Iguanodon, an herbivorous dinosaur of the early Cretaceous period. This was the first fossilized dinosaur brain found by modern scientists, announced in 2016.

Women Who Shaped History

The Woman Who Shaped the Study of Fossil Brains

By drawing out hidden connections, Tilly Edinger joined the fields of geology and neurology

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Women Who Shaped History

Women Who Shaped History

Collecting the stories of women who forever changed the course of the American story

The Tennessee Woman Suffrage Memorial in Knoxville is a start to what should be a nationwide trend.

Women Who Shaped History

Why We Need to Start Building Monuments to Groundbreaking Women

The brilliant female codebreakers of WWII were forgotten to history, but would that have happened had they been recognized with the same fervor as men?

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