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American History

Diver Andrew Donn swims above one of the Seiner’s trawl doors on July 27, 2025.

This Fishing Vessel Went Missing Without a Trace in 1929. Divers Just Found It Off the Coast of Nantucket

After the captain completed his required daily check-in on January 18, 1929, no one ever saw or heard from the ST “Seiner” again

The "Vanderbilt Sapphire" by Tiffany & Company is estimated to fetch at least $1 million at auction.

You Can Buy These Gilded Age Jewels That Once Belonged to the Vanderbilt Family

The collection, which will hit the auction block in November, includes a fragment of the tiara that Gladys Vanderbilt received upon her marriage to a Hungarian count

1964 Chevy Impala lowrider, “Gypsy Rose”

How Lowrider Culture Turned Custom Cars Into Colorful, Stunning Works of Art

A Smithsonian traveling exhibition maps the family ties and ingenuity behind lowriders—from post-World War II Chicano pride on boulevards to global car shows

The ship is still mostly intact on the bottom of Lake Michigan.

This Shipwreck Eluded Searchers for 139 Years. A Group of Historians and Citizen Scientists Found It in Two Hours

The 144-foot-long “F.J. King,” which sank in Lake Michigan in 1886, was known as a “ghost ship” that nobody could locate

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 silver statue of Abraham Lincoln was worth an estimated $166,000 as a historic work of art.

Thieves Steal and Destroy Solid Silver Statue of Abraham Lincoln Created by Mount Rushmore Sculptor Gutzon Borglum

Police have arrested and charged three suspects in connection with the incident, which took place at at the Houmas House Estate and Gardens in Louisiana

The National Archives is the permanent home of the United States Constitution.

America's 250th Anniversary

See the Entire U.S. Constitution on Display for the Very First Time in History

The National Archives in Washington, D.C. will be showcasing the four pages of the historic document, plus a rarely shown “fifth page,” the Bill of Rights and the 17 other amendments

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

Joseph McNeil speaks about the Woolworth’s sit-in in a 2023 interview.

Joseph McNeil, Member of ‘Greensboro Four’ Who Protested Segregation at Lunch Counters, Dies at 83

McNeil and three other Black freshmen held a famous sit-in at Woolworth’s in 1960, which inspired peaceful protests across the country

Firefighters are still assessing the damage, but several structures were destroyed in Chinese Camp.

Wildfire Sweeps Through Historic California Gold Rush Town Settled by Chinese Miners

Caused by a massive lightning storm, the 6-5 Fire destroyed the post office and several other buildings in the small town of Chinese Camp

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

The New York Public Library has one of Thomas Jefferson's handwritten copies of the Declaration of Independence in its collection.

America's 250th Anniversary

See Thomas Jefferson’s Handwritten Copy of the Declaration of Independence

The rare document will be on view for just three days at the New York Public Library next year in celebration of America’s 250th anniversary

People line up for rations of beans and water in Japan following the country's defeat in World War II, in September 1945.

A Batch of Undelivered WWII Letters Intended for Japanese Soldiers Ended Up in an Oregon Museum Decades Later. Now, Experts Are Returning the Lost Correspondence to Their Families

An organization devoted to returning artifacts as a way to heal the emotional wounds left by the war is helping the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum send these deeply personal items to the writers’ descendants

Every page is stamped with the words "Pearl Harbor" at the top.

Cool Finds

She Found a Tattered Logbook in the Trash. It Turned Out to Be a Rare Record From the 1941 Pearl Harbor Attack

The National Archives has recovered the volume, which includes more than 500 pages of data from March 1941 to June 1942. It had been tucked away in storage for half a century

The James Carruthers was one of a dozen ships that sank during the "White Hurricane" that swept across the Great Lakes in November 1913.

Shipwreck Hunter Finds Large Freighter That Sank in Lake Huron During the ‘White Hurricane’ 112 Years Ago

The 529-foot-long vessel is submerged 190 feet deep, resting upside down on the American side of the lake

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

The gun is now part of a permanent exhibition about TIll at the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson.

Traveling Along the U.S. Civil Rights Trail

The Gun Linked to Emmett Till’s Murder Is Now on Display at a Museum in Mississippi

The weapon is thought to have belonged to J.W. Milam, one of the two men who kidnapped, tortured and killed the Black teenager for whistling at a white woman in a grocery store in 1955

Young people in 1978 skateboarding at Kelvin Wheelies skatepark.

Archaeologists Are Digging Up Scotland’s Very First Outdoor Skatepark

Kelvin Wheelies skatepark, which hosted the country’s first national skateboarding competition, has been buried under rubble for decades

Water surrounds homes in New Orleans, Louisiana, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina

Twenty Years After Hurricane Katrina, Many of Us Are Still Missing All That We Lost—and Grappling With One of the Country’s Worst Disasters

In Louisiana, heat and hurricanes can feel like a generational curse. After two decades, an editor who grew up in the state remembers and reflects on Katrina

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