Excerpts

Until the 1600s, Spain, France and Portugal were much bigger players in the settlement of the New World.

The authors of a new photography book explain how their project took shape.

A McDonald’s breakfast buffet. An all-you-can-eat Taco Bell. This isn’t the stuff dreams are made of, but a real yet short-lived phenomenon.

The president's "1776 Commission" marks a turning point in his rhetoric.

Far from being a recent or 21st-century phenomenon, people have chosen, courageously, to trans gender throughout history.

President Trump has alarmed Jewish leaders by appearing to endorse 'racehorse theory' — used by eugenicists and Nazis last century.

Gains made under Carter’s presidential leadership in the early 1980s might have bought the planet precious time.

Proposals giving tenants the right to purchase their building are being revived as Covid-19 puts renters at risk.

Oceanographer Dawn Wright on how "Treasure Island" led her to map the bottom of the sea.

The danger of President Trump's rhetoric.

On-time elections are a key part of ensuring the promise of American democracy.

Saidiya Hartman’s "Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments" is a strike against the archives’ silence regarding the lives of Black women in the shadow of slavery.

Air guitar competitions may seem rather new, but this sport has a long, evolving, and sometimes surprising history.

Hospitalized presidents who don’t enact the 25th Amendment.

On the origins of "going postal."

In the 1940s, journalists fled traditional news outlets to write directly for subscribers. What happened next may be a warning.

As Trump calls for legions to, as he proclaimed, 'go into the polls,' we should recall the sordid episode of voter intimidation that happened in Orange County.

Golf clubs named after Confederate generals are attracting new scrutiny.

A hundred years ago, the U.S. was riven by disease, inflamed with racial violence, and torn between isolation and globalism. Sound familiar?

Grover Cleveland believed that if anything happened to his mustache during his surgery at sea, the public would know something was wrong.

They are beholden only to their patient, not to the American people.

The president contracted influenza while attending peace talks in Paris, but the nation was never told the full, true story.

In 1790, George Washington fell severely ill, threatening his life and the young nation he led.

Secular modernity requires the weeding out of all the baloney. Yet it’s not clear that we are any less credulous than before.

A former Navy lawyer speaks about his decision to leak classified information on detainees at the infamous prison of Guantanamo.

The children who desegregated America.

The filmmaker and photographer’s work shows late-sixties Black activism to be a joyful, community-building project.

As demands for racial justice grow, Trump is pushing historical mythmaking into high gear.

Lessons from 1800.

Women's clubs were popular after the Civil War among white and Black women. But white clubwomen used their influence to ingrain racist curriculum in schools.

On the need to rethink the U.S. immigration and refugee policy, which was shaped as part of Cold War strategy.

Eric Foner sees parallels with our own time but warns that yesterday’s solution would be a disaster.

The centennial of women’s suffrage which guaranteed all women the right to vote — has a lie at its very core.

White evangelical Christians are among President Trump’s most important supporters. But more than 40 years ago, they were on the margins of American politics.

The little-known story of the laborers who became pawns in a Floridian struggle during the American Revolution.

If your childhood vision of police is all pet rescues and tinfoil badges, Friendly’s “copaganda” did its job.

USS Doris Miller will honor a Black Pearl Harbor hero and key figure in the rise of the Civil Rights Movement.

His conception of what appeals to suburban voters is frozen in the past.

How the ancient, antisemitic nocturnal ritual fantasy expresses itself through the ages—and explains the right’s fascination with fringe conspiracy theories.

Some age groups are more likely to recognize certain songs than others.

For more than seven decades, the North Carolina memorial has courted controversy in unexpected forms.

The system that is nobody’s first choice.

Many of America’s most notorious feuds have their roots in the Civil War.

After Baldwin’s biographer died, her niece opened an old desk drawer and discovered a trove of interview material, some of it unpublished.

A new book documents the history of three specific mechanisms of expulsion: formal deportation, voluntary departure, and "self-deportation."

Revisionist biographers have given us countless perspectives, from Honest Abe to Killer Lincoln. Is there a version that’s true to his time and attuned to ours?

Reflecting on "Capitalism and Slavery" (1944), a work that continues to influence scholarship today.

Why President Trump’s refusal to commit to accepting the election results is so dangerous.

The modern-day human-resources practice is rooted in avant-garde philosophy.

In our current politics we must be attentive to how talk of American freedom has long been connected to the presumed right of whites to dominate everyone else.