Excerpts

It’s beginning to feel like the 1980s all over again.

An early use of the spoonerism "bass-ackwards" turns up in an 1840s letter by a young Abraham Lincoln.

The term "fake news" dates back to the end of the 19th century.

The Reverend Dr. Henry Highland Garnet may be the most famous African American you never learned about.

The co-opting of protests against racism has a storied history in our country.

The autobiography of NBA star Craig Hodges contains lessons for the pro athletes who are speaking up today.

The long history of athletes taking a stand for racial justice.

Here's what he thinks about national anthem protests.

Black athletes didn’t “politicize” American sports. They’ve been a battleground from the very beginning.

A fictional 1979 account of how the small Virginia city would weather an all-out nuclear exchange between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.

If everyone is breaking records, then who goes to Canton?

A number of black athletes are fueling their activism with Christian faith.

How the Spanish-American War laid the groundwork for American empire.

The football players are following in a long tradition of protest.

Presidents who take on the Bureau rarely win.

The debate over a Charleston monument to John Calhoun exemplifies the problems of contextualizing Confederate monuments.

On 400 years of tribalism, genocide, expulsion, and imprisonment.

How “Cops” became the most polarizing reality TV show in America.

Reconsidering the journalistic ethics of a New York Times reporter who chronicled the Manhattan Project from the inside.

Before Trump, one lobbyist’s pursuit of foreign cash and shady deals laid the groundwork for Washington’s corruption.

Contrary to popular conceptions, women were also instrumental to the spread and articulation of black nationalism.

On the 45th anniversary of the famous decision, Sarah Weddington reflects on what has – and hasn't – changed.

For unpopular presidents, the State of the Union is a minefield.

Putting Trump's approval rating in historical context.

A set of speech drafts suggests that Truman may not have fully understood the implications of dropping an atomic bomb on the city.

Did the bestselling self-help author do more harm than good for early patients with AIDS?

An illustrated history of urban renewal in Roanoke, Virginia.

Black Muslims have been an influential force in the prisoners' rights movement and criminal justice reform.

Women’s role in the 1920s KKK can teach us about racism today.

Talking sexism, ageism, and progress with Katha Pollitt.

Here's how the mystery of her true identity was solved.

The story of an underground abortion service that operated pre-Roe vs. Wade.

It wasn't some radical left-wing pipedream. It was moderate; and it worked.

Thomas Moss’ lynching, like many others in the South, was a punishment for becoming an economic competitor to whites.

The remarkable collection of sketches, drawings and watercolors left to us by a Civil War veteran.

The effort to repatriate the remains of thousands of Herero people slaughtered by German colonists at the turn of the century.

The western frontiers of national wellness culture.

Mapping historical photos from the New York Pubic Library.

How an appendix to an obscure government report helped launch a blockbuster and push back the possibility of atomic war.

Does the term clarify or confuse our understanding of capitalism today?

And anyway, agreement between the two parties has often masked serious problems.

President Trump is the embodiment of over 50 years of resistance to the policies Martin Luther King Jr. fought to enact.

From Civil War uniforms to Viking smelts, meet the people who bring history to life.

Clinton's memoir addresses the gendered discourse and larger feminist contexts of the 2016 presidential campaign.

How can adjacent neighborhoods in the same city be so drastically unequal?

An oral history of how Black Flag, Bad Brains, and other hardcore acts reclaimed punk from white supremacists.

For Meaghan Good, the disappeared are still out here, you just have to know where to look.

As King’s attention drifted to the problems of the urban north, his critiques came to focus on the economic system itself.

There is no figure in recent American history whose memory is more distorted than Martin Luther King Jr.

But it’s seriously dated. And there's another tradition he could draw on.