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National Archives building.
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Scratching the Record

On the long history of governments attempting to restrict access to documents about their inner workings.
by Asheesh Kapur Siddique via HNN on July 8, 2025
Helicopter, soldiers, and civilians at the fall of Saigon.
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How We Oversimplified the History of the Vietnam War

Popular memory of the war in both the U.S. and Vietnam tends to cast the fall of Saigon as inevitable.
by Andrew Bellisari via Made By History on April 30, 2025
Trump from behind, and the Washington monument.

How Trump Wants to Change History

Late last month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to restore “truth and sanity to American history.”
by Adam Rowe via Compact on April 24, 2025
A photograph of the SS Eastland.

Checking out Historical Chicago: Cynthia Pelayo's "Forgotten Sisters"

The SS Eastland disaster and Chicago's ghosts.
by Elizabeth McNeill via Chicago Review of Books on March 20, 2024
A young Black boy pictured mid-flip, while his peers look on. In the background are a row of houses, one of which abandoned with the windows punched out.

What We Meant When We Said 'Crackhead'

“I’ve learned, through hundreds of interviews and years of research, is that what crack really did was expose every vulnerability of society.”
by Donovan X. Ramsey via The Atlantic on July 11, 2023
Books from the 1990s.

What Literature Do We Study From the 1990s?

The turn-of-the-century literary canon, using data from college syllabi.
by Matthew Daniels via The Pudding on January 11, 2023
Ken Burns speaking into a microphone.

Shaming Americans

Ken Burns’s "The U.S. and the Holocaust" distorts the historical record in service of a political message.
by Amity Shlaes via City Journal on January 9, 2023
Mushroom cloud of nuclear bomb.

Forgetting the Apocalypse

Why our nuclear fears faded – and why that’s dangerous.
by Daniel Immerwahr via The Guardian on May 12, 2022
After his shooting, a hospitalized Wallace holds up a newspaper touting his victories in the Maryland and Michigan Democratic presidential primaries.

How a Failed Assassination Attempt Pushed George Wallace to Reconsider His Segregationist Views

Fifty years ago, a fame-seeker shot the polarizing politician five times, paralyzing him from the waist down.
by Diane Bernard via Smithsonian on May 12, 2022
Illustration of a stick figure on a ladder adding to very tall stacks of paper

Living Memory

Black archivists, activists, and artists are fighting for justice and ethical remembrance — and reimagining the archive itself.
by Megan Pillow via Guernica on June 23, 2021
A slave in chains behind an American flag

Germany Faced its Horrible Past. Can We Do the Same?

For too long, we've ignored our real history. We must face where truth can take us.
by Michele Norris via Washington Post on June 3, 2021

The School Shooting That Austin Forgot

In 1978, an eighth grader from a prominent Austin family killed his teacher. His classmates are still haunted by what happened that terrible day and after.
by Robert Draper via Texas Monthly on March 18, 2020
Dr. Cliff Kuhn leading the 1906 Race Riot Walking Tour. Photo credit: Julia Brock

Atlanta's 1906 Race Riot and the Coalition to Remember

Commemorating the event that hardened the lines of segregation in the city.
by Jennifer Dickey via National Council on Public History on February 6, 2020

The Remembered Past

On the beginnings of our stories—and the history of who owns them.
by Lewis H. Lapham via Lapham’s Quarterly on December 14, 2019

1968’s Chaos: The Assassinations, Riots and Protests that Defined Our World

On the 50th anniversary of that extraordinary year, historians consider 1968’s meaning and global context.
by Michael S. Rosenwald via Washington Post on January 1, 2018
A Continental soldier in the Revolutionary War holding a tattered American flag and standing on chains.

We Could Have Been Canada

Was the American Revolution such a good idea?
by Adam Gopnik via The New Yorker on May 8, 2017
Bob Dylan.

Legacy of a Lonesome Death

Had Bob Dylan not written a song about it, the 1963 killing of a black servant by a white socialite’s cane might have been long forgotten.
by Ian Frazier via Mother Jones on May 8, 2010
Eagle on the front cover of Lynd's "Origins of American Radicalism" book
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The Return of Staughton Lynd

A look back at the historian's work suggests that contemporary radicals may be all too invested in the myth of American consensus.
by David Waldstreicher via HNN on February 15, 2010
Chinese fishermen in Monterey, California, 1875.Photograph by Albert Dressler / Courtesy California Historical Society Collection at Stanford

The Ritual of Civic Apology

Cities across the American West are issuing belated apologies for 19th-century expulsions of Chinese residents, but their meaning and audience remain uncertain.
by Beth Lew Williams via The New Yorker on September 13, 2025
James M. Hinds portraits shown blurry as if ink colors were misaligned during printing.

The Eloquent Vindicator in the Electric Room

No one remembers the assassination of Congressman James M. Hinds. What do we risk by making it just another part of American history?
by Drew Johnson via Longreads on September 9, 2025
Japanese screen depicting Europeans coming to trade.

The Last Witnesses: Preserving the History of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

In the Embers series, historian M.G. Sheftall shares the stories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s last survivors and reveals why their testimony must endure.
by Kevin Dickinson via Big Think on August 20, 2025
Trump hugging the American flag, superimposed on rows of soldiers with bowed heads.

Trump’s Reckless Assault on Remembrance

The attempts by his administration to control the ways Americans engage with our nation’s history threaten to weaken patriotism, not strengthen it.
by Ed Ayers via The New Republic on August 10, 2025

George Floyd and the Writing of the Final Chapter of Richmond's Confederate Monuments

Do we as Americans have the strength to confront our complicated past?
by Kevin M. Levin via Civil War Memory on May 25, 2025
John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1819.

Who Invented the “Founding Fathers?”

The making of a myth.
by George Dillard via Looking Through The Past on May 21, 2025
A protester holds a "Patriots don't tolerate tyranny" sign. Other signs advocate for the rule of law over kings and tyranny.

The Freedom-Loving Minutemen of Massachusetts Strike Again

Just down the road from Lexington and Concord, American patriots scurried to defend their immigrant neighbors.
by Harold Meyerson via The American Prospect on May 20, 2025
Vintage illustration of three generations of a 1950s American family, sitting in their living room watching television (screen print), 1950.

How Social Reactionaries Exploit Economic Nostalgia

Conservatives think we need traditional hierarchies to reverse social decline; But it’s the economic equality created by strong unions that Americans miss.
by Meagan Day via Jacobin on May 20, 2025
Film still from "Three Seasons" of a flower seller in Vietnam.

Tony Bui on the Vietnam War’s Cinematic Legacy

Films from Vietnam and Hollywood testify to the range of stories told about the war on-screen and the different memories they embody.
by Will Noah, Tony Bui via Current [The Criterion Collection] on April 29, 2025
Painting of the Battle of San Pasquale in the U.S.-Mexico War.

Borders May Change, But People Remain

The legacies of conflict—and their increasingly accessible images in a global age—frame the shared bonds of trauma in keeping their memories alive.
by Emiliano Aguilar via Public Books on April 24, 2025
A monument of the Minutemen line in Concord, Massachusetts.
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The Dangerous Afterlives of Lexington and Concord

How a myth about farmers taking on the British has fueled more than two centuries of exclusionary nationalism.
by Eran A. Zelnik via HNN on April 15, 2025
Robert Frost.

Chapters and Verse

Looking for the poet between the lines.
by Jay Parini via The American Scholar on March 3, 2025
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