Told

The first newspapers contained not high-minded journalism, but hundreds of readers’ letters exchanging news with one another.

A brief history (and celebration) of the apex of human civilization.

On the cancelling of Charles Lindbergh.

Gravely inaccurate 19th-century depictions of the destruction of Rome are used to illustrate parallels between Rome and the U.S.

What would an American dictionary meen for the men and wimmen of America?

Southern newspapers played a major role in racial violence. Do they owe their communities an apology?

How shock jock comedy gave way to Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

The impact of Columbine on today's youths -- and how the media has shifted its coverage of school shootings.

Searching for meaning in the shooters’ infamous “basement tapes.”

His failed attempts to bring the Emmett Till tragedy to television forced him to get creative.

Reading recommendations from a lifelong education.

The term “miscegenation” was coined in an 1864 pamphlet by an anonymous author. It turned out to be an anti-abolition hoax.

On Facebook's 15th anniversary, Harvard students and faculty reflect on being the first users of Earth's largest social network.

In modern democracies, who gets to determine what counts as truth—an elite of experts or the people as a whole?

Brothel guides’ descriptions of brothelgoers asked that if respectable men could enjoy sexual pleasure for sale in American cities, why couldn’t their readers?

Decades before WikiLeaks, Philip Agee’s magazine blew the cover of more than 2,000 CIA officers.

How we went from “racist” to “racially tinged.”

Or better put, why is it something so many outside of the South have recently adopted?

When the white-supremacist group terrorized the South during Reconstruction, many people denied that it even existed.

Commentators compared the Nazi leader to Napoleon, Philip of Macedon, and Nebuchadnezzar.

30 years ago, it was a huge fire in Yellowstone National Park that stoked media attention and political controversy.

The call to “speak English” in America has a long history that often drowns out our even longer history of diverse language use.

Pundits can't seem to define what exactly the term refers to. Turns out it was developed for a very particular historical moment.

"American journalism is younger than American baseball."

What's the real history behind Trump's 'witch hunt' tweets?

Leslie Gelb supervised the team that compiled the Pentagon Papers. He explains what Steven Spielberg's new film gets wrong.

The battle between "Happy Holidays" and "Merry Christmas" goes way deeper than you think.

The untold story of the double agent who attacked the paper from within.

A conversation with the man behind World AIDS Day.

Small businesses enjoy an iconic status in modern capitalism, but what do they really contribute to the economy?