American History

The Broken Promise of the Levees That Failed New Orleans

A piece of concrete serves as a reminder of how Hurricane Katrina shattered a city's faith

Schuylkill County Deputy Coroner Joe Pothering points to human bones in embankment along Route 61 in Schuylkill Haven, Pennsylvania August 14, 2015. Forensic archaeologists on Friday began excavating a highway embankment in eastern Pennsylvania, looking for more bones believed to be from impoverished victims of the worldwide Spanish flu pandemic in 1918.

Human Bones Found Near Pennsylvania Highway Could Be From the 1918 Flu

Roadside construction reveals mass gravesite

The motor convoy departed D.C. on July 7, 1919.

How a Hellish Road Trip Revolutionized American Highways

Quicksand, food rationing, and embarrassment may have prompted Ike to push for a better highway system

Jobs holds up an iPhone 4 at a tech conference in 2010.

Steve Jobs is About to Get His Own Opera

But will it include a singing Woz?

Aldrin was became the second human to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

Astronauts Fill Out Customs Forms, Too

Read Buzz Aldrin's expense report and customs form from his Apollo 11 mission to the moon

Workers prepare the Fat Man, the implosion bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945.

How Physics Drove the Design of the Atomic Bombs Dropped on Japan

The gun-like design of the Little Boy bomb was effectively the last of its kind

Teen Schools Professor on "No Irish Need Apply" Signs

Armed with a Google search and a theory, a 14-year-old enters the fray on a longstanding historical debate

U.S. Marines search for Haitian rebels in 1919.

The United States Once Invaded and Occupied Haiti

In 1915, American troops began a 19-year, unofficial occupation of the Caribbean nation

The 7 Line is currently undergoing a system upgrade from one that was installed in the 1930s to one run by computers.

NYC Subway Technology Goes Way Back...to the 1930s

America's busiest subway system relies on vintage machines

70 Years Ago, a B-25 Bomber Crashed Into the Empire State Building

14 people died in the accident

An aerial view of part of the Idaho National Laboratory.

Tour the World’s First Nuclear Power Plant

The historic site in a remote desert is now a museum where visitors can see the instruments that made nuclear history

Scientists have for the first time identified the four people buried in Jamestown's first church. They are (from left) minister Robert Hunt, Sir Ferdinando Wainman, Captain Gabriel Archer and Captain William West.

New Jamestown Discovery Reveals the Identities of Four Prominent Settlers

The findings by Smithsonian scientists dig up the dynamics of daily life in the first permanent British settlement in the colonies

Visit D.C.'s Best Off-the-Beaten-Path Historic Homes and Gardens

History, nature and culture combine at these fascinating estates and gardens in our nation's capital

The National Museum of American History in its new exhibition "American Enterprise," displays a prime example of Stephen Burrough's art—a $1 certificate on the Union Bank of Boston, dated 1807, signed by Burroughs as cashier, and later stamped COUNTERFEIT.

The Entertaining Saga of the Worst Crook in Colonial America

Stephen Burroughs was a thief, a counterfeiter and a convicted criminal. A rare piece of his fake currency is in the collections

Brazil's Surui people, like the man pictured above, share ancestry with indigenous Australians, new evidence suggests.

A DNA Search for the First Americans Links Amazon Groups to Indigenous Australians

The new genetic analysis takes aim at the theory that just one founding group settled the Americas

In the 1960s, One Man Took Washington D.C.’s Rat Problem Into His Own Hands, Literally

And challenged the city’s race and wealth divide in the process

Scripps oceanographer Eric Terrill and BentProp founder Pat Scannon investigate the main fuselage of a TBM Avenger lost 70 years ago during a bombing mission near Palau.

Divers Turn to Robots for Help Scouring the Pacific for Long-Lost WWII Soldiers

An ongoing effort to recover those missing in action teams military historians, volunteers and scientists

Workmen constructing the Statue of Liberty in Bartholdi's Parisian warehouse workshop in the winter of 1882.

The Statue of Liberty Arrived in New York in 350 Pieces

Luckily, she also came with an instruction manual

In this intricate mechanical bank, the user balances a coin on the miniature man's gun, which then shoots the coin into a slot in the tree.

One Man's Obsession With Antique Toys Resulted in a Museum

The Portland, Oregon, attraction is more than just the stuff of Kidd's play

The Allosaurus was a true terror of the Jurassic world.

What Killed the Dinosaurs in Utah's Giant Jurassic Death Pit?

Paleontologists are gathering evidence that may help crack the 148-million-year-old mystery, including signs of poisoned predators

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