Excerpts

The 1874 locust swarm was estimated to be twice the square mileage of the state of Colorado. Why don't locusts swarm anymore?

A selection of illustrated maps of New York spanning six centuries.

How much do we expect our presidents to rest?

A new book shows that for female slaveholders, the business of human exploitation was just as profitable as it was for men.

Much of the migrant "crisis" is blowback from decades of official U.S. policy in Central America.

A look at anti-miscegenation laws across the United States.

What remains of Hugh Magnum's work documents how much was shared in common by people who racist laws treated as separate.

The young Civil Rights activist was killed in the dead of night by police and the FBI. Who was Fred Hampton?

The living-history museum in Virginia re-creates 18th-century recipes in its restaurants using ingredients grown in the traditional way onsite. But some modern palates aren't too keen on the taste.

The speeches present the country’s condition as a puzzle that’s missing one piece, which the candidate can supply.

You will never think about the 36th president the same way again.

Do successful presidents make sound knife-wielders?

Hoover was a brilliant manager, a wizard of logistics, and an effective humanitarian. Why do we remember him as a failure?

Reflections on the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Get riled up again about Trump's refusal to release his returns with a brief history of this now-discarded presidential tradition.

One of the very reasons the framers wanted the president to take a salary, was to avoid potential conflicts of interest.

This document is the rarest of items in the Library of Congress's manuscript collections: a letter written by an enslaved person.

The study of medicine is rife with racist assumptions and experiments that still shape health outcomes today.

Americans tend to see their country as a nation-state, not an imperial power.

The technical wizardry of Peter Jackson's "They Shall Not Grow Old" should not obscure its narrow, outdated storyline.

Tracing the culinary revolution that changed Americans’ approach to eating.

The governor’s yearbook picture, like many images before it, reinforces the belief that blacks are content in their oppression.

Truman seized control of the country’s steel mills during the Korean War. It led to a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court.

The punkahs of the Antebellum era served many purposes.

Following wartime opportunities west, seven million “Rosie the Riveters” found more than just jobs when they reached California.

Montana's emblematic Glacier National Park reveals the impact of human history and culture.

Amazon, the Great Depression, and the fiscal history #HQ2 supporters miss.

A new book argues that the Constitution’s framers believed that vast concentrations of wealth were the enemy of democracy.

He never denounced slavery and was brutal towards American Indians, but remains a popular figure. Why?

The strange tale of the socialites who shaped modern marriage on the American frontier.

For the last decade of his life, the sozzled Hemingway was in thrall to an Italian 30 years his junior.

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.