Memory

For years, she’s injected subtle, deft works of cultural history into the New York Times.

The people who make it past 100, who watch the most history unfold, are almost all women.

Partisanship is much more polarized by racial attitudes than it was 20 years ago.

But her memoir caused a rift with Mary Todd Lincoln.

During the Civil War, slave pens held captive Confederate soldiers. After, they became rallying points for a newly empowered community.

A historian probes the ‘tragedy’ of the famed scholar's failed WWI history.

A conversation with the creator of a virtual reality experience that takes you inside the protests leading up to MLK Jr.’s death.

When an online news outlet goes out of business, its archives can disappear as well. The new battle over journalism’s digital legacy.

Once John E. Washington started to dig, he found an incredible wealth of untapped knowledge about the 16th president.

Why have Americans been obsessed with this one loss rather than dozens of victories?

Former slaves claimed the president came to plantations disguised as a beggar or a peddler, telling them they’d soon be free. 

Determined researchers are finally drawing the lines between higher education and America's original sin.

Were the founders really warning us about Trump, or were they just playing politics, too?

After my son died, how could I know anything for certain?

For most of American history, Washington's Birthday was a really big deal, but that’s changed a lot since the middle of the twentieth century.

America is covered in Confederate statues. We can do better — and here’s how.

A new study suggests that high school students lack a basic knowledge of the role slavery played in shaping the United States.

The debate over a Charleston monument to John Calhoun exemplifies the problems of contextualizing Confederate monuments.

150 years after Yosemite opened to the public, the park's indigenous inhabitants are still struggling for recognition.

Here's how the mystery of her true identity was solved.

There is no figure in recent American history whose memory is more distorted than Martin Luther King Jr.

The footage offers a riveting account of American history, in the voices of those who lived it.

King should be appreciated in his full complexity.

King was roundly denounced for his stances against the Vietnam War and injustices north of the Mason-Dixon line.

From Civil War uniforms to Viking smelts, meet the people who bring history to life.

How America’s infatuation with World War II has eroded our conscience.

Even Twain's own autobiography cannot reveal the whole truth of the literary legend.

Remembering the life of astronaut John Young and the time he took an unauthorized corn beef sandwich into space.

In the hamlet where U.S. troops killed hundreds of civilians, survivors are ready to forgive the most infamous American soldier.

On the 50th anniversary of that extraordinary year, historians consider 1968’s meaning and global context.