Excerpts

The actor and martial arts star also wanted to be regarded as a poet-philosopher.

The “syringe tides”—waves of used hypodermic needles, washing up on land—terrified beachgoers of the late 1980s. Their disturbing lesson was ignored.

In 2026, we will celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, and also the fifth anniversary of the January 6th uprising.

On Spiro Agnew's lasting legacy.

Yelling about schools gets people riled up. The outcome can be unpredictable.

Huey P. Newton has been mythologized and maligned since his murder 34 years ago. His family and friends offer an intimate look inside his life and mind.

Police have been using the snapshots in criminal investigations since the advent of commercial photography

A Filipino woman died after coming to the U.S. to be put on display at the 1904 World's Fair. A Smithsonian anthropologist likely took part of her brain.

The study of poverty has flourished in recent decades. Why haven’t the lives of the poor improved?

In the years before Roe v. Wade, maternity homes in the United States housed residents who, upon giving birth, often relinquished their children for adoption.

A prolific, meticulous artist, McCay created characters and storyscapes that inspired generations of cartoonists and animators.

Researchers are rediscovering the forgotten legacy of a pioneering Black scientist who conducted trailblazing research on the cognitive traits of animals.

Last month, descendants of copper miners and history enthusiasts alike gathered for the 117th annual Central Mine reunion service

Rethinking the twentieth century.

The free market used to be touted as the cure for all our problems; now it’s taken to be the cause of them.

The 1989 cult classic ushered in a darker, weirder, more experimental era for teen movies.

In his latest book, Michael Kazin argues that the Democrats have long sought to build a “moral capitalism.” Have they ever succeeded?

In “Spoiled,” the culinary historian Anne Mendelson takes aim at the American fallacy of fresh milk as a wonder food.

The straightforward way in which Google answers this query is a case study in how new science becomes accepted as fact in the modern era of rapid communication.

Police from as far away as Alabama were watching.

The movie has no interest in reducing the atomic bombings to a trivializing, exploitative spectacle, despite what some would want.

King offered Americans the choice between acting in accordance with the Constitution and resistance to change.  In many ways, we face the same choice today.

Historians should watch films like Judas and the Black Messiah as much for their filmmaking as their history making.

A wrestler, a Sunday school teacher, and a mystery man walk into a studio.

The earliest-known version of the dish was a winey, briny, bready casserole.

While most Jewish immigrants flocked to urban centers, a few -- like the Greenbergs -- tried their luck as homesteaders.

A historic 1908 conference transcended party and personal interest for the ‘common good.'

The Peshtigo fire ran through 17 towns and killed more than 1,000. It was worsened by a dry season and extreme winds — not dissimilar to what happened in Maui.

The Post interviewed March on Washington participants and voices from younger generations to tell the story of Aug. 28, 1963 and what it means now.

Suspicions have long swirled around unscrupulous campaign manager William Casey. We believe the evidence is now overwhelming.

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.