Excerpts

In the 1920s, Washingtonians dealt with the summer heat by going to the nearest beach...at the Tidal Basin.

In settling a rivalry between Maryland and Virginia and preventing individual states from getting into bed with France and Spain, maybe the Articles weren't a failure after all.

The Wire — both stylish and smart, follows unforgettable characters woven into a striking portrait of the depredations of capitalism in one US city.

Noam Chomsky discusses the hypocrisies of US empire and why if we really wanted to build a decent society, we’d immediately slash the massive military budget.

Using a custom encryption scheme based on musical notation, US musicians smuggled information into and out of the USSR.

"The tallest trees at Roaring Run remember sending down taproots even as the furnace stones were still warm. Desecration is not ironclad."

At the turn of the century, two important books wrestled with the question of how a nation "conceived in liberty" should engage with the world.

"History​ is written by the victors, but diligent and continual silencing is required to maintain its claims on the present and future."

Observing the visible features of Martian landscapes, Giovanni Schiaparelli began seeing things almost immediately.

For years, the idea seemed immoral and dangerous.

Since 1892, the United States has deported more immigrants (over 57 million) than any other nation.

Hannah Zeavin’s history of remote and distance psychotherapy asks us whether the medium matters more than the message.

"A lot has been hidden from Black Americans. And so there is always a longing to know who you are and where you come from.”

Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called on the president of the United States to defend the rights of gay and lesbian Americans.

The Weisman family objected to religious prayers at a 1986 school graduation. The case went to the Supreme Court, which is again ruling on prayer in schools.

How a 37-word clause tucked inside a new education legislation reshape women’s sports forever.

The Julian Assange case exposes how changing concepts unintentionally broadened a law.

In 1985, Neil Postman observed an America imprisoned by its own need for amusement. He was, it turns out, extremely prescient.

As the deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment lapsed in June 1982, the amendment's foes celebrated, while its proponents looked to the future.

These communities rely almost entirely on tourism for their existence—yet too much tourism, not to mention climate change, can destroy them.

Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Congress enacted several laws restricting the sale of alcohol to Native Americans.

“The schoolhouse door cannot be closed to one of modern society’s most marginalized, most vilified groups.”

Bohemian Greenwich Village and the secret club that sparked modern feminism.

Black generosity has always been vital to the freedom struggle.

Before Juneteenth became an official federal holiday, 94-year-old Opal Lee was on a mission.

The rights and responsibilities of 17th-century fatherhood in England's North American colonies.

The holiday’s lack of history allowed activists to give it meaning after America’s divorce laws changed.

The controversy between players and owners frequently brought baseball into the federal courts between the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries.

In his comprehensive study of the national anthem, a historian and musicologist examines our complicated relationship to a famously challenging song.

As the gunmakers’ markets matured through the Civil War era, some began mastering the art of product promotion, following the lead set by Samuel Colt.

When horses gallop, do all four hooves ever leave the ground at once? This episode of The Disappearing Spoon recounts the saga that led to the answer.

Scripted from front-page news, the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper plays were part entertainment, part protest, and entirely educational.

Pachappa Camp, the first Korean-organized immigrant settlement in the United States, was established through the efforts of Ahn Chang Ho.

Stephanie Hall provides examples of folklore and storytelling within a fathers' relationship to music.

Ralph LaRossa explains the problems with mythologizing modern dads and the stereotypes present within views of fatherhood of the past.

From MLK to Obama, advancers for civil rights were driven by their fatherhood and dreams of better life for their own children.

Tufts Professor Kris Manjapra examines the history of the injustice of abolition in the U.S. and abroad and the need for reparations in his new book.

"I think the key change for the invention of the modern father is in the 1920s," says historian Robert L. Griswold.

Before she met John Lennon, she was a significant figure in avant-garde circles and had created masterpieces. Did celebrity deprive her of her due as an artist?

Why vigilante violence appeals politically.

Herblock, Garry Trudeau, and others created memorable cartoons that skewered Nixon and Watergate, making the era a boom time for political satire.

Can the origins of American religious freedom be traced to the religious and political history of England and its empire?

Find out how one woman asked to recognize the fathers in her town and inspired others.

As an NRA-approved icon and the mass shooter’s weapon of choice, the AR-15 has done untold harm.

Southern secessionists in 1860 had similar arguments to those of the rioters who stormed the Capitol.

A century ago, Arlington was home to one of the most powerful radio stations in history, which helped to usher in an era of wireless communications.

In the twentieth century, the mollusk-produced gem was a must have for members of WASP gentility. In the twenty-first century, its appeal is far more inclusive.

In Hell Creek, Montana, with a lot of dynamite.

As Frederick Douglass’s master put it, a slave who learned to read and write against the will of his master was tantamount to “running away with himself.”

Time to blow the final whistle on the oppression Olympics.