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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.
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.”
A photograph of the SS Eastland.

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

The SS Eastland disaster and Chicago's ghosts.
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.”
Books from the 1990s.

What Literature Do We Study From the 1990s?

The turn-of-the-century literary canon, using data from college syllabi.
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.
Mushroom cloud of nuclear bomb.

Forgetting the Apocalypse

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

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.
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.

The Remembered Past

On the beginnings of our stories—and the history of who owns them.

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.
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?
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.
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.

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?
John Trumbull’s painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, 1819.

Who Invented the “Founding Fathers?”

The making of a myth.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Robert Frost.

Chapters and Verse

Looking for the poet between the lines.
Robert Frost.

The Many Guises of Robert Frost

Sometimes seen as the stuff of commencement addresses, his poems are hard to pin down—just like the man behind them.
Painting imagining Washington shaking hands with Lincoln in front of liberty's flame.

Praising Washington in Lincoln’s Day

At the time of the Civil War, many Americans revered the nation’s Founding Fathers, and both supporters and opponents of slavery recruited them to their sides.

Trump May Wish to Abolish the Past. We Historians Will Not.

Commentary from the heads of two prominent historical associations on Trump’s recent executive order on “radical indoctrination” in schools.
A flag depicting a hand pulling back the American flag to reveal a Confederate flag.

Patriotic Education and the End of History

Or, a brief history of today's erasure of history.
Donald Trump and RFK Jr. shaking hands.

The Magic Thinking of Kennedy-ism

The hero worship of the family of American royalty has a dark side: a tendency toward conspiracism that fits with the MAGA movement.

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