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Screen capture of Fred Rogers at a desk with microphones, testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications.

Fred Rogers Testifies Before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications

The young Mr. Rogers brings down the house in his 1969 effort to save public broadcasting from the chopping block.
by U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation via YouTube on May 1, 1969
Yosemite Valley from Artist’s Point

This Land is Their Land: Trump is Selling Out the US’s Beloved Wilderness

During the McCarthy era’s darkest days, public lands came under attack. History now repeats itself – and this may be the last chance to defend what’s ours.
by Nate Schweber via The Guardian on May 18, 2025
Elon Musk and his son board Air Force One.

How William Howard Taft’s Approach to Efficiency Differed from Elon Musk’s

This isn’t the first effort by a president’s appointee to streamline government.
by Laura Ellyn Smith via The Conversation on May 9, 2025
Representative Greg Casar, in front of a poster that says "Fire Elon, Save Elmo"

The Trump Administration’s Showdown with PBS and NPR

While Democrats waving a Big Bird doll around on the House floor saved public broadcast funding in the past, this strategy does not seem likely to work in 2025.
by Abby Whitaker via Clio and the Contemporary on May 1, 2025
Political cartoon showing a dog named 'income tax' running from a can called "supreme court decisions."

No, President Trump, the Income Tax Wasn’t A Mistake. But It Was an Accident.

Trump claimed that the income tax was passed for “reasons unknown to mankind” and caused the Great Depression. Here’s the real history.
by Jesse Eisinger via ProPublica on April 8, 2025
Collage of protesters holding up signs against war taxes.

Could Tax Protests Defund the American War Machine?

Tax resistance has long opposed war and empire in North America, and could be a way to resist U.S. funding of violence in Gaza today.
by Lauren Fadiman via Current Affairs on March 18, 2025
Volunteers at a camp for internally displaced people in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, carry wheat flour donated by USAID in 2021.

USAID’s History Shows Decades of Good Work on Behalf of America’s Global Interests

USAID started in the 1960s as a way to offset the spread of communism. Since then, it has had various other soft-power benefits for the US.
by Christian Ruth via The Conversation on March 5, 2025
Erased chalkboard in empty classroom

Cruel to Your School

Public education is meant to be a great equalizer. That’s why Trump wants to do undo it.
by Jennifer C. Berkshire via The Baffler on February 27, 2025
American Flag with Stars replaced with atoms and stripes replaced by syringes and graduated cylinders

The Rise (and Fall?) of the National Science Foundation

In the ’50s, America declared science an ‘endless frontier.’ We may be reaching the end of it.
by Carly Anne York via The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 21, 2025
Montack Point lighthouse.

Illuminating the Republic: Maritime Safety and the Federalist Vision of Empire

Federal lighthouses symbolized a vigorous young nation barreling toward maturity.
by Shawn David McGhee via Journal of the American Revolution on January 18, 2024
From left: snow, three men, and several vehicles with large tires.

The U.S. Army Tried to Build a Secret Nuclear City under Greenland’s Ice

Long before Greenland’s shifting ice threatened sea level rise, it doomed one of the military’s most audacious Cold War projects.
by George Bass via Washington Post on November 13, 2023
Carter at the Dedication of a New Solar Water Heating System for the White House Roof.

Unheralded Environmentalist: Jimmy Carter’s Green Legacy

In 1978, Carter protected 56M Alaskan acres, tripled wilderness lands, championed conservation, and foresaw climate risks, leaving a lasting green legacy.
by Kai Bird via Yale E360 on March 23, 2023
Men standing around an archaeological site.

America’s Biggest Museums Fail to Return Native American Human Remains

The remains of more than 100,000 Native Americans are held by prestigious U.S. institutions, despite a 1990 law meant to return them to tribal nations.
by Logan Jaffe, Mary Hudetz, Ash Ngu, Graham Lee Brewer via ProPublica on January 11, 2023
President Clinton pursing his lips, while Newt Gingrich looks at him from behind.
partner

Midterm Elections: How 1994 Midterms Set Off an Era of Divisive Politics

Economic and social issues with roots in the 1994 midterms are still being debated today.
via Retro Report on August 25, 2022
Drawing of aerial view of vast room of cubicles.

The 20-Year Boondoggle

The Department of Homeland Security was supposed to rally nearly two dozen agencies together in a streamlined approach to protecting the country. So what the hell happened?
by Amanda Chicago Lewis via The Verge on April 21, 2022
Cleveland-Stevenson Tariff Reform Portrait Handkerchief

Tax Regimes

Historian Robin Einhorn reflects on Americans’ complicated relationship to taxes, from the colonial period through the Civil War to the tax revolts of the 1980s.
by Robin Einhorn, Noam Maggor via Phenomenal World on March 24, 2022

Merchants of Death

From the Nye Committee to Joe Kent, the fight against war profiteering is a constant struggle.
by Hunter DeRensis via The American Conservative on November 8, 2021
FDR's cabinet and descendants

The Unusual Group Trying to Turn Biden into FDR

In a city of ambitious influencers, a shadow cabinet hopes it can summon a new New Deal.
by Ruby Cramer via Politico Magazine on August 1, 2021
Truman in car with dollar signs on eyes.

The Truman Show

How the 33rd president finagled his way to a post–White House fortune — and created a damaging precedent.
by Paul Campos via Intelligencer on July 24, 2021
Nancy Reagan standing behind a railing.

Nancy Reagan’s Real Role in the AIDS Crisis

The former first lady fought the conservative Reagan administration in an attempt to get her husband to pay more attention to the deadly pandemic.
by Karen Tumulty via The Atlantic on April 12, 2021
A red, white, and blue star over a cropped portrait of James Madison.

America Must Become a Democracy

The authors of the Constitution feared mass participation would unsettle government, but it’s the privileged minority that has proved destabilizing.
by David Frum via The Atlantic on February 15, 2021
Protestors against eviction.
partner

Covid-19 Has Exposed the Consequences of Decades of Bad Public Housing Policy

A reduction in public housing units left Americans at the mercy of private landlords.
by Gillet Gardner Rosenblith via Made By History on September 8, 2020
partner

Yes, President Trump, Confederate Base Names Celebrate Heritage — a Shameful One

Why removing the names of Confederates from military bases matters.
by Chad Williams via Made By History on July 2, 2020
Police officer behind yellow police tape.

Police Reform Won’t Fix a System That Was Built to Abuse Power

The history of American policing shows that it was designed to eat up resources and subjugate the civilian population.
by Stuart Schrader via The Nation on June 12, 2020

Ike's Military-Industrial Complex, Six Decades Later

As Eisenhower predicted, there is no balance left, as U.S. policy is reduced to who we threaten, bomb, or occupy next.
by James P. Pinkerton via The American Conservative on January 15, 2020

What John F. Kennedy’s Moon Speech Means 50 Years Later

“We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
by Marina Koren via The Atlantic on July 15, 2019

While NASA Was Landing on the Moon, Many African-Americans Sought Economic Justice Instead

The billions spent on the Apollo program, no matter how inspiring the mission, laid bare the nation's priorities.
by Bryan Greene via Smithsonian on July 11, 2019
Illustration of money burning

Obituary for a Billion-Dollar Boondoggle

Nearly two decades ago, historians embraced a hugely wasteful federal education program. It’s past time to reckon with that.
by Sam Wineburg via The Chronicle of Higher Education on September 16, 2018
A group of two women and one child watches a military procession pass.

How the US Military Became a Welfare State

Long in retreat in the US, the welfare state found a haven in an unlikely place – the military, where it thrived for decades.
by Jennifer Mittelstadt via Aeon on September 21, 2015
Income tax form

Tax Time

Why we pay.
by Jill Lepore via The New Yorker on November 19, 2012

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