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Crowd in front of Washington Monument for presidential inauguration
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Monumental Disagreements

On America's iconic monuments and the idea of national remembrance.
via BackStory on May 24, 2013

May Day's Radical History

The date of Occupy's strike has ties to the eight-hour day movement, immigrant workers and American anarchism.
by Jacob Remes via Salon on April 30, 2012
Henry Clay's body in his death bed, surrounded by mourners.

All That Remains of Henry Clay

Political funerals and the tour of Henry Clay's corpse.
by Sarah J. Purcell via Commonplace on April 2, 2012
Painting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin while writing the Declaration of Independence.

How the Complete Meaning of July Fourth Is Slipping Away

John Adams would not be happy to see what Independence Day has become.
by Gordon S. Wood via The New Republic on July 4, 2011

Origins of Black History Month

Why did Carter G. Woodson choose February, and what was his vision for the annual commemoration?
by Daryl Michael Scott via Association for the Study of African American Life on February 1, 2011
Illustration depicting Betsy Ross presenting the flag to George Washington.

How Betsy Ross Became Famous

Oral tradition, nationalism, and the invention of history.
by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich via Commonplace on October 1, 2007
Ships on fire and being evacuated at Pearl Harbor.

Pearl Harbor as Metaphor

At the frontier of American empire.
by John Gregory Dunne via The New Yorker on April 29, 2001
“The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers,” an 1885 parody of an 1850 painting by Charles Lucy.

Thankstaking

Was the 'first Thanksgiving' merely a pretext for the bloodshed, enslavement, and displacement that would follow in later decades?
by Jane Kamensky via Commonplace on January 1, 2001
Painting imagining John Brown (bearded man embracing Black child), being escorted by authorities.

Eugene Debs’s Stirring, Never-Before-Published Eulogy to John Brown at Harpers Ferry

In 1908, Eugene Debs eulogized John Brown as America's "greatest liberator," vowing the Socialist Party would continue Brown's work. We publish it here in full.
by Eugene V. Debs via Jacobin on October 1, 1908
Lincoln giving Gettysburg Address.

The Gettysburg Address

In 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most famous speeches in U.S. history.
via Voices Of Democracy on November 19, 1863
A nuclear explosion mushroom cloud.

What Do We Forget When We Remember Hiroshima?

Eighty years of talking peace and preparing for nuclear war.
by Eric Ross via Tom Dispatch on August 12, 2025
New citizens at a naturalization ceremony.

Our Cherished Values and Ideals

Celebrating immigrants on the nation's birthday.
by Marc Stein via Political Junkie on July 4, 2025
Vera Rubin and looking through a telescope.

Who Was Vera Rubin?

The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope was renamed The Vera C. Rubin Observatory. This telescope is breaking new ground, just as Vera Rubin did in her lifetime.
by Jacqueline Mitton, Simon Mitton via Harvard University Press Blog on June 28, 2025
South Korean soldiers walking through a trench of dead bodies.

The Moral Distortions of the Official Korean War Narrative

June 25 marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War. But the truth is that the US was a willing partner in mass murder across the peninsula.
by Grace M. Cho via The Nation on June 24, 2025
A National Police Week ceremony.

The Jim Crow Origins of National Police Week

Police brutality and corruption are painful realities. So are officers who die performing their duty. But the memorial in Washington fails to distinguish them.
by Elizabeth Robeson via The Nation on May 9, 2025
Two Vietnamese women mourn their relatives on April 29, 1975, at Bien Hoa military cemetery.

US Defeat in Vietnam Was the Right Outcome for an Unjust War

The US invasion of Vietnam was catastrophic for the Vietnamese people, resulting in millions of deaths. Fifty years ago, the US-backed regime finally collapsed.
by Michael G. Vann via Jacobin on April 30, 2025
Revolutionary War reenactors near Lexington, Massachusetts.

The King We Overthrew — and the King Some Now Want

Americans need to reconnect with their innate dislike of arbitrary rule.
by Philip Bump via Washington Post on April 17, 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
Painting by Hiroki Kawanabe titled Wide Street.

Legacies of Japanese American Incarceration

Brandon Shimoda’s book about the memorialization of Japanese internment camps also speaks to the brutal system of migrant detention that continues to this day.
by Francisco Cantú via New York Review of Books on April 3, 2025
A U.S. Postal Service employee loading a van with mail.
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How Mail Delivery Has Shaped America

The United States Postal Service is under federal scrutiny. It’s not the first time.
by Sarah Prager via JSTOR Daily on March 12, 2025
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain

Chamberlain’s War

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is remarkable not only for his sacrifices on behalf of the Union, but also for the moral imagination that inspired him.
by Mitchell G. Klingenberg via Law & Liberty on February 28, 2025
Painting imagining Washington shaking hands with Lincoln in front of liberty's flame.
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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.
by Livia Gershon, Jeffrey J. Malanson via JSTOR Daily on February 12, 2025

Protest and Politics

Two new biographies enhance our knowledge of John Lewis, the late congressman and civil rights hero.
by Jason Sokol via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on January 15, 2025
Faneuil Hall in Boston at night.

Why Faneuil Hall Is a Metaphor for the American Revolution’s Complicated Definition of Liberty

How a lively market on Boston Harbor became part of many defining moments of the Colonial and Revolutionary eras.
by Michael Snyder via Smithsonian on January 8, 2025
President Roosevelt signs the proclamation naming December 15 as Bill of Rights Day.

The Reinvention of the Bill of Rights

The New Deal-era creation of “Bill of Rights Day” obscures the real nature and guardrails of American liberty.
by Jerome C. Foss via Law & Liberty on December 13, 2024
he obverse (right) and reverse (left) of the James H. Hyde Medallion, designed by Paul H. Manship, on the Janvier reduction machine.

Tokens of Culture

On the medallic art of the Gilded Age.
by James Panero via The New Criterion on December 12, 2024
Phil Little Thunder, a great-great-grandchild of the Lakota chief whose village was attacked in 1855.

How Recovering the History of a Little-Known Lakota Massacre Could Heal Generational Pain

The unraveling of this long-buried atrocity is forging a path toward reconciliation.
by Tim Madigan via Smithsonian on October 22, 2024
A few people sitting down and reading the bible.

Public Schools, Religion, and Race

It was no coincidence that public school secularization and desegregation were happening, and failing, simultaneously.
by Leslie Beth Ribovich via The Revealer on September 5, 2024
Children and a teacher at an Indian Boarding School.

US Citizenship Was Forced on Native Americans 100 Years Ago − Its Promise Remains Elusive

Why few Native Americans are celebrating the centennial of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.
by Kerri Malloy via The Conversation on July 25, 2024
Illustration of soldiers fighting in the Battle of the Cowpens.

Did the South Win the Revolutionary War?

A new book brings to life the war in the South.
by Dan McLaughlin via National Review on July 4, 2024
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