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American History

Marilyn Monroe playing on the beach

Cool Finds

Model Your New Year’s Resolutions After Marilyn Monroe’s in 1955

The actress wrote that she wanted to “keep looking around me — only much more so”

Stony Ground by Edwin Austin Abbey

Cool Finds

The Second Divorce in Colonial America Happened Today in 1643

The Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans weren’t as conservative as you may have thought

Sculptures in St. Anthony's Chapel in Pittsburgh.

Cool Finds

Pittsburgh Has a Huge Collection of Relics

St. Anthony’s Chapel contains the largest number of relics outside of the Vatican

Cool Finds

The Library for Magicians Is Taking Appointments

The Conjuring Arts Research Center in New York City houses some of the world’s rarest books on the art of deception

Enthusiasts examining the patch for NROL-35 think the trident, fire and breeze through the character’s hair might represent the elements—water, fire and wind. “What that has to do with the actual payload, however, is anyone’s guess,” says space historian Robert Pearlman.

The Creepy, Kitschy and Geeky Patches of US Spy Satellite Launches

There may be method to the madness behind the outlandish designs of the National Reconnaissance Office mission patches

Fred Savage (right) and Josh Saviano (left) of "The Wonder Years" reunited at the American History Museum on December 2, 2014 to donate items, including the New York Jets jacket shown here in a publicity photo from around 1988.

Fred Savage and “The Wonder Years” Cast Reflect on Why Their Show Still Matters

The cast and crew of “The Wonder Years” reunited at the American History Museum today to donate costumes and other artifacts

Cool Finds

Hollywood Asked for Freeway Noise Barriers First

It only makes sense that the problem of road noise cropped up in Los Angeles

New Amsterdam, Now New York, on the Island of Manhattan by Johannes Vinckeboons

Cool Finds

New Amsterdam’s First Laws: Drink Less, Fight Less

New Amsterdam was controlled by the Dutch from 1624 to 1664

A Civil War historical re-enactment at Tunnel Hill, Georgia

Cool Finds

A Nurse Describes the Smell of the Civil War

The overpowering stink of blood and decaying flesh can surprise even trained soldiers

Who is this random guy? It's John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States.

New Research

Soon Enough No One Will Remember Bill Clinton

People mostly remember first and recent US presidents, forgetting almost all the ones that came between

Two turkeys spent last night in the Willard Intercontinental Hotel in Washington, DC.

Trending Today

Pardoned Turkeys Spend a Night in a Hotel First

After an evening in a $350 hotel room, today President Obama will spare the birds from the butcher’s block

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Document Deep Dive

John Smith Coined the Term New England on This 1616 Map

After Jamestown, Smith pushed the English to settle the northeast, identifying Plymouth as a suitable harbor four years before the Pilgrims landed there

Vice President Al Gore, with President George Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney

How the Office of the Vice Presidency Evolved from Nothing to Something

Vice President John Adams once said “In this I am nothing, But I may be everything.” A new book tells how the office has moved from irrelevance to power

Some of Mrs. Jerry Davis' students saved letters from their Vietnam War pen pals, which they donated to the American History Museum on November 14.

Vietnam War Vets Reconnect With Their 1960s Pen Pals For a Museum Donation

Decades after they sat in Mrs. Davis’ fourth grade class, former students donated Vietnam War materials to the American History Museum

Cool Finds

A Lost John Steinbeck Short Story Was Rediscovered, Published

The short story deals with the racial politics of the mid-20th century

Cool Finds

19th Century Concern Trolling: Chess Is “a Mere Amusement of a Very Inferior Character”

The writers of Scientific American had some not nice things to say about chess

George Washington's only complete set of dentures, made out of lead, human teeth, cow teeth and elephant ivory.  

Cool Finds

George Washington Didn’t Have Wooden Teeth—They Were Ivory

Washington’s teeth were made of a lot of things, but not wood

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Cool Finds

Someone Just Bought an Entire Connecticut Ghost Town for $1.2 Million

Johnsonville was once a 62-acre mill village

Did this piece of debris come from Amelia Earhart's plane? Some think so; others disagree.

Trending Today

Aircraft Hunters Think They’ve Found a Scrap of Amelia Earhart’s Plane

This isn’t the first time a seemingly game-changing piece of evidence about Earhart’s disappearance has arisen, however

A yellow fever epidemic may have planted the seeds of inspiration for Washington Irving's iconic tale of the a headless horseman.

Halloween

What “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” Tells Us About Contagion, Fear and Epidemics

Washington Irving fled New York because of a yellow fever epidemic. Twenty-two years later, his classic story spoke to the chaos of his youth

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