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African American History

Marine archeologist Andreas Kallmeyer Bloch documents the shipwreck.

Cool Finds

Locals Thought These Shipwrecks Had Belonged to Pirates. They Turned Out to Be 300-Year-Old Danish Slave Ships

The two vessels had been trafficking hundreds of enslaved Africans when a navigational error led them astray. They sank off the coast of Costa Rica in the 18th century

Members of the Six Triple Eight in Rouen, France, in 1945

Women Who Shaped History

The Only Black, All-Female Unit to Serve Overseas in World War II Receives the Congressional Gold Medal

The Six Triple Eight cleared a years-long backlog of mail in just three months. Eighty years later, the unit is finally getting the recognition it deserves

The museum is filled with interactive exhibits and activities, including a bean-themed ball pit play area.

Now Open in Kansas City, The World’s First Barbecue Museum Is a Feast for the Senses

Jump in the bean-themed ball pit, solve a pork puzzle and pose with a championship mustard belt at the new Museum of BBQ

Neil Frye was just 20 years old when he was killed in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

A Young Sailor’s Remains Return Home 84 Years After He Was Killed at Pearl Harbor

Neil Frye was 20 when Japan launched its surprise attack on December 7, 1941. He has been laid to rest with full military honors in his home state of North Carolina

View of the "Paris Noir" exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris

This Exhibition Spotlights the Black Artists Who Called France Home in the 20th Century

A blockbuster show at the Centre Pompidou in Paris spotlights 300-plus works by 150 artists of African heritage

The National Public Housing Museum is located in the last remaining building of the Jane Addams Homes, Chicago's first public housing development.

New Museum Examines the History of American Public Housing—and the Stories of Its Residents

Located in a preserved 1930s development in Chicago’s West Side, the museum includes three recreated apartments representing families of different decades and demographics

Senator Joseph McCarthy “comes along really chronologically halfway through the story [in the early 1950s], and there’s a lot that happened before he was even on the scene,” says author Clay Risen.

Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare, a Hunt for Communists in Postwar America

In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation

Rebecca Lee Crumpler's gravestone was only installed in 2020, 125 years after her death in 1895.

Women Who Shaped History

The Nation’s First Black Female Doctor Blazed a Path for Women in Medicine. But She Was Left Out of the Story for Decades

After earning a medical degree in 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler died in obscurity and was buried without a headstone

A 19th-century lithograph of Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" speech

America's 250th Anniversary

Discover Patrick Henry’s Legacy, Beyond His Revolutionary ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ Speech

Delivered 250 years ago, the famous oration marked the height of Henry’s influence. But the politician also served in key roles in Virginia’s state government after the American Revolution

Harper Lee on the porch of her parents' home in Monroeville, Alabama, in 1961

Eight Never-Before-Seen Short Stories by ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ Author Harper Lee Will Be Published This Year

After Lee’s death in 2016, typescripts of her early fiction were discovered in her New York apartment. The previously unseen drafts offer new insights into her creative development

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There's More to That

A Mystery Surrounding the Grave of JFK Is Solved

A sculpture recognizing a spontaneous gesture of affection towards the slain president vanished into thin air more than half a century ago. Here’s the story of how it was just recently rediscovered.

Historian Martha S. Jones (bottom left) turned to ledgers, deeds, census records and government documents to unravel her family's story.

How a Leading Black Historian Uncovered Her Own Family’s Painful Past—and Why Her Ancestors’ Stories Give Her Hope

Martha S. Jones’ new memoir draws on genealogical research and memories shared by relatives

Barrington Scott, shown here diving in Malta, traveled to all seven continents to scube dive between November 13 and December 3, 2024.

This Man Just Set a New World Record for Scuba Diving in All Seven Continents

Barrington Scott began his 27,000-mile quest in Australia and completed it in Antarctica. The journey took him 19 days, 19 hours and 40 minutes

A group of women sewing a quilt on the porch of a property in Georgia, May 1939

From the Antebellum South to the Civil Rights Movement, Black American Women Have Long Told Their Stories Through Quilts

In a new exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery, over 30 works showcase the significance of this quilting tradition

A group photo taken at what might have been a memorial or funeral service at the Florida School for Boys in the 1950s

Based on a True Story

The Real Story Behind ‘Nickel Boys’ and the Brutal Florida Reform School That Inspired the Film

Based on a Colson Whitehead novel, the Oscar-nominated movie dramatizes the story of the Florida School for Boys, which traumatized children as young as 5 for more than a century

A 1910 watercolor portrait of Belle da Costa Greene by Laura Coombs Hills

Women Who Shaped History

The Trailblazing Black Librarian Who Rewrote the Rules of Power, Gender and Racial Passing

Belle da Costa Greene, the first director of the Morgan Library, was a Black woman who passed as white in the early 20th century

Photograph of Jack Carter (Macbeth), Kenneth Renwick (Second Murderer) and George Nixon (First Murderer) in the Federal Theatre Project production of Macbeth at the Lafayette Theatre, Harlem.

Orson Welles’ All-Black Version of ‘Macbeth’ Excited Theatergoers Nationwide

The bold staging of Shakespeare’s classic helped make Harlem a home for “serious” theater

Josephine Baker performs at the Folies Bergère, c. 1925.

Josephine Baker’s Memoir Is Now Being Published for the First Time in English

A newly available memoir reveals a tender, private side of the global celebrity

Apollo Lunar Sample Container No. 1008, triple-sealed, in which the Apollo 12 astronauts transported invaluable samples of moon back to Earth.

The Otherwise Unremarkable ‘Rock Boxes’ That Brought Pieces of the Moon Back to Earth

Far from ordinary, it took a cutting-edge NASA design to safeguard these treasures during the Apollo missions

William Henry Ellis traveled the world, made and lost millions, tried his hand at Texas politics, consulted with emperors, and met with the presidents of multiple countries.

Untold Stories of American History

Born Enslaved, This Black Millionaire Attempted to Colonize Mexico and Aspired to Be the Emperor of Ethiopia

William Henry Ellis masqueraded as a Mexican businessman, but he never shied away from his Black roots

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