Excerpts

Prominent institutions, such as the Smithsonian, have historically erased or omitted US women from archival records.

The welfare rights movement of the 1960s and ’70s resisted invasive policies. Their animating vision: that society treat every mother and child with dignity.

James McBride’s new novel tells a story of solidarity between Black and Jewish communities.

Exploring the origins and impacts of the "March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom," on that event's 50th anniversary.

The so-called "father of the bomb" helped bring us prematurely into the age of existential risk.

Coming from the Congo, I knew where an essential ingredient for atomic bombs was mined, even if everyone else seemed to ignore it.

For decades, locals believed landscape architect Jens Jensen designed this twisty stretch of Highway 42—the real history is even more serpentine.

Will our own elites perform any better than the rulers of Chaco Canyon, the Mayan heartland, and Viking Greenland?

A close look at the grand compromise of 1976.

Governor Ralph Northam pardoned seven young Black men put to death in 1951— a step forward in addressing Virginia's imperfect criminal justice system.

Discover the stories, spaces, and people of the American Revolutionary War era through maps, interpretive essays, and interactives.

The radical approach employed by black leftists at the Amenia conference set the stage for the civil rights unionism that would help topple Jim Crow.

In “Liberalism Against Itself,” Samuel Moyn stresses the need to resuscitate an earlier and more rousing wave of thinkers.

Might a world republic provide humanity with the tools to address the climate emergency, runaway artificial intelligence, and new weapons of mass extermination?

The records of a New York surveillance committee from the time of the First Red Scare document a radical world—and its demise.

There is no acknowledgement in the film of the existence of downwinders from the test, in New Mexico or elsewhere.

“We could afford to end poverty,” Matthew Desmond tells us. That we don’t is a choice.

American leaders called the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki our 'least abhorrent choice,' but there were alternatives to the nuclear attacks.

Why our nuclear fears faded – and why that’s dangerous.

How August Wilson became one of the country’s most influential playwrights.

J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project scientists are a rare example of weapons designers who have gone down in history.

South Korea is finally being held to account for the carnage its mercenary troops inflicted on Vietnamese civilians. No one seems to be reckoning with our complicity.

Richard Nixon decided a powerful new medium should appeal to the marketplace, not to citizens.

A Smithsonian curator John Troutman and a blues musician discuss a new folk album, "Playing for the Man at the Door," from late chronicler Mack McCormick's collection.

Here’s what it’s like to report on the process as an Indigenous journalist.

The Federal Home Loan Bank Board openly admitted to operating as the Johnny Appleseed of redlining, sowing its seeds into the private financial system.

A-bomb architect “was no Einstein,” historian says, but he did Nobel-level work on black holes.

Smith collected rare books, paper airplanes, Pennsylvania Dutch tools—and harvested the folk music recordings that changed a generation.

A new book argues that American politics are defined by unfulfilled desire.

The Truman administration launched a PR campaign to inflate casualty numbers to justify the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Florida’s new standards for teaching social studies include throwbacks to an interpretation of slavery as benign or inconsequential.

In Hip hop’s “golden era,” the period from 1987 to 1994, rappers used their platforms to bring attention to issues plaguing poor and working-class Black communities.

The Smithsonian’s human brains collection was led by Ales Hrdlicka, a museum curator in the 1900s who believed that White people were superior.

“The Lost Colony” had dramatized American mythology in the Outer Banks since 1937 with White actors as Indians. Now, Native performers are rewriting the story.

A new chronicle of redwood logging exposes how a cadre of wealthy industrialists reaped a fortune in the name of environmentalism.

A journalist seeks to capture the "spirit" of Oak Ridge.

Historians owe a debt of gratitude to these furry pilferers.

The story of how The Band, in Robbie Robertson's words, "acted out an ideal of democracy and equality."

The Teamsters and Jimmy Hoffa—with a little help from the mob—built Las Vegas as we know it today.

The Universal Hip Hop Museum is poised to bring an economic and cultural infusion to the borough where the genre was born and bred.

Early in our history, firearms laws were everywhere.

A new book works to counteract the “symphony of erasure” that has obscured and denied Africa’s contributions to the contemporary world.

How a style steeped in American elitism took over the world.

The 19th century singer forced critics and audiences to reconcile their ears with their racism.

The history of camping in the U.S. starts in the Adirondacks, with a guidebook that became an instant bestseller.

In a white supremacist society, where Black people are still fighting for freedom, the Black family offers protection and, at times, a space for resistance.

The Sugarhill Gang song remains one of rap's most beloved. But it took serendipity, a book of rhymes, and an agreement to settle a lawsuit for it to survive.

We should find inspiration in their goals today.

The making of “Blonde on Blonde” in Nashville, Tennessee.

After a year of controversy, the city has narrowed down five options for a monument to the activist and abolitionist.