Excerpts

A set of 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of millions of dollars’ worth of treasure buried in rural Virginia.

A history of filmmakers retelling the story of New York’s architecture.

In the period of a few weeks, President Trump mocked both the Trail of Tears and the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The borderlands have “been transformed into a vast graveyard of the missing.”

A childhood lesson in the backseat of a 1973 Mustang.

The untold origin story of an iconic workout machine, told one step at a time.

Minstrel shows were once so mainstream that even presidents watched them.

Why do Americans get so worked up by the basic assertion that all science is political?

The first episode of NPR's new history podcast tells the story of a 1953 coup that set the stage for US-Middle East relations ever since.

A history of blackface and minstrelsy in American culture.

Populism is typically presented as a new threat to liberal democracy. But properly understood, it is neither modern nor rightwing.

How a census taker and an artist were participants to the grand project of displaying and explaining America to itself.

Why did Carter G. Woodson choose February, and what was his vision for the annual commemoration?

They offer jaw-dropping examples of the sexism and racism that shaped professional cultures.

If we remember correctly how the Cold War ended, we can gain inspiration for how to begin to overcome the “new cold war.”

On November 9, 1983, the Soviet Union nearly ordered a full pre-emptive nuclear strike against the US and Western Europe.

"This is not just a fad. This, for us, was a dance of survival, but it was also a social dance."

Whether we consider the sounds of nature to be pleasant or menacing depends largely on our ideologies.

They were enormous, tech-savvy, and invasive in their methods—and they enlisted Abraham Lincoln into their ranks.

Following in the footsteps of 20th century African Americans, Ethelene Whitmire experiences a 21st century transatlantic crossing.

Yellow fever ravaged Philadelphia in 1793, touching nearly everyone in the city.

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

And why they must resist the Court's current race-based precedents.

Bridgett M. Davis tracks her mother's journey from Nashville to Detroit.

In the early 1800s, David Hosack created one of the nation's first botanical gardens to further his pioneering medical research.

Poke around the game’s fictional South and you’ll find cross-burning Klansmen, whom you are free to kill.

Carter G. Woodson’s unpublished work was discovered in 2005 by a Howard University history professor.

Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address kicked off a war that continued well into the 21st century.

Carter’s speech heralded a dramatic shift in foreign policy toward a policy of containment of Soviet influence.

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

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

How Plessy v. Ferguson shaped the history of racial discrimination in America.

Is it time for an end to American imperialism? Two authors re-examine American intervention overseas.

The trends that brought us Howard Schultz (and Donald Trump) started in the 1970s.

What the battle between Herbert Hoover and FDR can teach us.

At some point, Jackie began to refer to himself not as “I” but as “we.”

Joy Lisi Rankin’s book on the history of personal computing looks at the technology’s forgotten democratic promise.

The Georgia governor’s election was the latest example of how James Madison’s words continue to shape our views on race.

Re-telling the arrival of settlers on the prairie.

During WWI, the Surgeon General received numerous pitches for miraculous cures for sick and wounded American soldiers.

It was among the first social issues to split American Protestants into liberal and conservative camps.

A video game portrays the Wild West’s famous detective agency as violent enforcers of order. But the modern-day company disagrees.

What does Black History Month leave out?

Tulsa’s Greenwood neighborhood was a prosperous center of Black wealth. Until a white mob wiped it out.

For the past decade, history has been declining more rapidly than any other major, even as more and more students attend college.

The complex backstory of one of the most famous images of the Great Depression.

A hundred years at the edge of empire.

Behind one of the most iconic computer games of all time is a theory of how cities die—one that has proven dangerously influential.

How blackface shaped Virginia politics and culture for more than a century.

The uncertain meaning behind a half-black, half-white, two-headed toy.