Bunk combs the web for new interpretations of American history, and highlights the fascinating connections between them.
Origin Story
The Birth Pangs of the U.S. Navy
It was founded 250 years ago today—and, oddly, was promptly ordered to attack what is today its biggest base.
exhibit
Voting Rights: A Retrospective
Voting, a right not initially enshrined in the Constitution, has been secured, revoked, and contested since the nation's founding era.
News
The Canceled Civil War Assassin's Creed Game Was a Powder Keg Waiting to Explode
Ubisoft was reportedly working on a game set after the Civil War era, but canceled it due to politics and protagonist backlash.
Comment
To Haunt and Be Haunted: On the Exhumation of Edgar Allen Poe
On the terror of being buried alive and Americanism in Poe’s work.
Retrieval
The Black Loyalists
Thousands of African Americans fought for the British—then fled the United States to avoid a return to enslavement.
Book Excerpt
The Ad Campaign for Capitalism
In the 1970s, corporate America struck back at the forces attempting to rein it in. One of their tactics was a public service announcement.
Debunk
How Eli Whitney Single-handedly Started the Civil War . . . and Why That’s Not True
The real Whitney story is less grand than the legend, but more interesting and, ultimately, more edifying.