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History / U.S. History

An applejack sour combines lemon juice, orange juice, maple syrup and Angostura bitters, plus a little nutmeg. 

Cold Weather and Apples Were Two Things the American Colonies Had. Industrious Scottish Immigrants Turned Them Into a Favorite Spirit

Applejack is not quite whiskey, but it’s stronger than cider, and it was treasured by some of the Founding Fathers. It’s still around and makes an appealing cocktail

What made the U.S. Post Office Department decide to start its airmail service so early, before air travel was even common?

Why Did the U.S. Post Office Start Airmail So Early? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

A 1976 postcard features an illustration of the burning of Norfolk. 

In January 1776, Virginia’s Port City of Norfolk Was Set Ablaze, Galvanizing the Revolution. But Who Really Lit the Match?

Blaming the British for the destruction helped persuade some wavering colonists to back the fight for independence. But the source of the inferno was not what it seemed

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A Chance for Healing, 170 Years After a Lakota Massacre

Dozens of personal belongings from the Rosebud Sioux tribe find their way home after spending decades in the Smithsonian collections

Babies on plane seats during Operation Babylift in April 1975

This Adoptee Discovered a Trove of Documents in a Nun’s Basement. The Rare Vietnam War Records May Rewrite the Story of Operation Babylift

The April 1975 effort matched more than 2,800 infants and children evacuated from Vietnam with adoptive families. Today, the adoptees are searching for clues to their past—and reflecting on the complicated legacy of their evacuation

Only a fraction of the nearly 12,000 proposed amendments to the Constitution have been ratified into law.

Twelve Failed Constitutional Amendments That Could Have Reshaped American History

These proposals sought to change the United States’ name, abolish the presidency and the vice presidency, and set a limit on personal fortunes, among other measures

The Rocky Horror Picture Show debuted in theaters across the United States on September 26, 1975.

‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ Started Out as a Critical Flop. Fifty Years Later, the Beloved Film Is a Cultural Phenomenon

Creator Richard O’Brien reflects on how the 1975 movie musical became a haven for the “marginalized and disenfranchised”

A romanticized depiction of the execution of Nathan Hale on September 22, 1776

America's 250th Anniversary

Nathan Hale, the Doomed Patriot Spy, Probably Never Said ‘I Only Regret That I Have but One Life to Lose for My Country’ Before His Execution

The young Connecticut schoolmaster’s intelligence-gathering mission was ill-fated from the start. But after he was hanged by the British in September 1776, his story became the stuff of legend

The Cato who aided Hercules Mulligan might have been a man enslaved by the powerful Schuyler family.

Untold Stories of American History

Did an Enslaved Chocolatier Help Hercules Mulligan Foil a Plot to Assassinate George Washington?

New research sheds light on the possible identity of Cato, the Black man who conveyed the tailor’s lifesaving intelligence to the Americans during the Revolutionary War

Medical supplies for the front are piled up at a railway station in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1935. Back in America, Black educator Melva L. Price rallied support for Ethiopian refugees fleeing the violence of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.

During the Great Depression, This Black Educator Looked to Conflicts Abroad for Lessons on Fighting Racism at Home

The Second Italo-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War offered Melva L. Price and her fellow female activists an opportunity to examine the links between racism and fascism

Visitors participate in a Forest Temple service in the spiritualist community of Lily Dale, about an hour southwest of Buffalo.

The Tiny New York Town Where Mediums Give Voice to the Dead

Lily Dale is home to about 40 mediums who connect thousands of spiritual seekers with their deceased loved ones

Two of Frank Kameny’s notebooks. In one, Kameny notes that the owners of the Tides Hotel are “non-members” but “sympathetic.”

Frank Kameny Helped Chart a Path to Liberation for Millions of Gay Americans

Personal notebooks reveal what life was like for the Washington activist who spent decades advocating for equal rights in the federal government and elsewhere

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When Historians Rediscovered These Frederick Douglass Letters, They Were Surprised by His Candid Opinions About Abraham Lincoln

In correspondence with a passionate abolitionist in London, the great American orator didn’t hold back when talking about the 16th president, or his successor, the much-maligned Andrew Johnson

Clockwise from top left: Abigail Adams, Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Four Famous American Women Who Were Also Prolific Letter Writers

In a long and storied tradition, these bold women recorded history—and shaped it—through their correspondence

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America's 250th Anniversary

The Underappreciated True Story of the Brash Prussian Military Officer Who Whipped the Patriots Into Shape at Valley Forge

Most Americans think of George Washington’s winter encampment as brutal and deadly. But Friedrich von Steuben, an out-of-work military veteran from Europe, turned it into a fruitful training ground

Gouverneur Morris condensed and revised a draft of the United States Constitution, but he came to doubt his own words by the end of his life.

America's 250th Anniversary

The Founding Father Who Lost a Leg, Romanced Married and Single Women Alike, and Escaped the Bloodshed of the French Revolution

Gouverneur Morris wrote the preamble to the Constitution and shaped the future of the nascent United States. Later in life, he rejected the foundational document as a failure

“We cannot be indifferent on any occasion that appears nearly to affect the peace and happiness of our country,” wrote the resolution’s 51 signees. Their words were republished in newspapers across the Thirteen Colonies and beyond.

America's 250th Anniversary

To Protest British Taxes, Men Dumped Tea Into Boston Harbor. With the Edenton Tea Party, Colonial Women Took a Different Approach

In 1774, 51 North Carolinian women led by Penelope Barker signed a resolution supporting the boycott of British goods

Johnny Cash chats with inmates and guests during his visit to Cummins Prison in Arkansas on April 10, 1969.

Seventy Years Ago, Johnny Cash Recorded ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ and Became a Folk Hero for the Ignored and Downtrodden

A man of the people, the artist put his money where his mouth was by visiting prisons around the country and performing the song

A romanticized 1975 depiction of Daniel Morgan's riflemen at the Battle of Bemis Heights in Saratoga, New York, on October 7, 1777

America's 250th Anniversary

How a Relentless, 484-Mile March From Virginia to Massachusetts Fueled the Legend of the Dashing Frontier Rifleman

In the early months of the American Revolution, Daniel Morgan and his soldiers raced north to join the Continental Army during the so-called Beeline March

Florida's Everglades was recognized for being a dynamic ecosystem worth protecting as a national park beginning in 1947.

Seven Mysteries You Can Explore in America’s National Parks

From unexplained phenomena to baffling disappearances, follow the clues while discovering our country’s treasured protected areas

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