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Jimmy Swaggart

How Jimmy Swaggart Changed American Christianity

The disgraced televangelist built his career on an undeniable talent. His downfall contributed to a major shift in how Americans viewed religious leaders.
by Daniel N. Gullotta via The Bulwark on July 3, 2025
President John F. Kennedy meets with William Fitzjohn, Sierra Leone's charge d’affairs in Washington, in the Oval Office on April 27, 1961.

The African Diplomats Who Protested Segregation in the U.S.

Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy publicly apologized after restaurants refused to serve Black representatives of newly independent nations.
by Francine Uenuma via Smithsonian on February 24, 2023
Horatio Greenough's statue of George Washington in a toga.

The First Statue Removed From the Capitol

Long before monuments to enslavers were removed, lawmakers decided to relocate a scandalous, half-naked depiction of George Washington in a toga.
by Ronald G. Shafer via Retropolis on January 22, 2023
Jerry Lee Lewis backstage in 1982.

Jerry Lee Lewis Was an SOB Right to the End

Jerry Lee Lewis was known as the Killer, and it wasn’t a casual sobriquet.
by Bill Wyman via Vulture on October 28, 2022
Black and white photo of Fatty Arbuckle

Fatty Arbuckle and the Birth of the Celebrity Scandal

A murder charge, a media frenzy, a banishment, and accusations of sexual abuse in Hollywood. What can the Arbuckle affair, now 100 years old, teach us today?
by Michael Schulman via The New Yorker on September 30, 2021

Gossip, Sex, and Redcoats: On the Build-Up to the Boston Massacre

Don't let anyone tell you revolutionary history is boring.
by Serena Zabin via Literary Hub on February 20, 2020
Leland Stanford, oil painting by French artist Ernest Meissonier, 1881. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Was Leland Stanford a ‘Magnanimous’ Philanthropist or a ‘Thief, Liar, and Bigot?’

The railroad baron and governor of California was starkly contradictory and infamously disruptive.
by Roland De Wolk via What It Means to Be American on October 17, 2019

The Historical Profession's Greatest Modern Scandal, Two Decades Later

Emory professor Michael Bellesiles resigned in the midst of a political firestorm. He still stands by his work.
by Bill Black via The Week on September 18, 2019
A naked woman bathes.

How the Hays Code Took the Sex Out of Hollywood

A group of early 20th-century Catholics sought to impose their standards of morality onto the growing and scandal-ridden Hollywood film industry.
by Michael Koresky via Literary Hub on June 24, 2025
Aimee Semple McPherson addresses a crowd.

An Eerily Familiar 20th-Century Hoax

Aimee Semple McPherson created a wildly popular personal brand as a preacher—then suddenly disappeared.
by Dorothy Fortenberry via The Atlantic on May 12, 2025
Workmen clearing cobwebs from exterior of the White House, c. 1920.
partner

How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying

The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. 
by Camille Walsh via HNN on April 23, 2025
Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's Duel

In the summer of 1842, young Abraham Lincoln’s razor-sharp wit almost got him into a whole heap of trouble.
by Harold Holzer via The Saturday Evening Post on February 12, 2025
Herbert O. Yardley and diplomatic codes from the Black Chamber.

The Spy Who Exposed the Secrets of the Black Chamber

In 1931, Herbert O. Yardley published a tell-all book about his experiences leading a covert government agency called the Cipher Bureau.
by Peter Zablocki via Smithsonian on February 4, 2025
President John F. Kennedy writing at desk in the Oval Office.

Kennedy Family Values

Why is America’s near-mythic dynasty so nasty up close?
by Alan Pell Crawford via The American Conservative on January 25, 2025
Drawings of Sadie James and Charles Page over a map of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The True Story of Tulsa’s Forgotten Antihero, Sadie James

And a walk downtown in search of her saloon, the Bucket of Blood.
by Russell Cobb via The Pickup on January 23, 2025
A painting of Marie-Louise Coidavid.
partner

The First and Last Queen of Haiti in Exile

Queen Marie-Louise outlived most of her family, yet her story about the revolution and its aftermath was rarely consulted by those writing the era’s history.
by Marlene L. Daut via HNN on January 7, 2025
Collage of letters and postcards detailing a fraudulent scheme.

Letters Hidden in My Family’s Attic Reveal a 1910s Bank Con in Key West

The con artist was either a very unlucky man or a trickster who got away with it all.
by Asia London Palomba via Atlas Obscura on January 3, 2025
Grover Cleveland.

The President Trump Is Pushing Aside

Grover Cleveland enthusiasts aren’t thrilled that Donald Trump won a nonconsecutive presidential term.
by Russell Berman via The Atlantic on January 1, 2025
Photo of Grover Cleveland and then a photo of Donald Trump next to each other.
partner

Will Grover Cleveland's Second Term Foreshadow Trump's Future?

The only president before Trump to win, lose, and win again ended up decimating his own party during his second term.
by Luke Voyles via Made By History on November 21, 2024
Alice Rhinelander surrounded by well-dressed family members awaiting the jury verdict in Rhinelander v. Rhinelander.

How an Interracial Marriage Sparked One of the Most Scandalous Trials of the Roaring Twenties

Under pressure from his wealthy family, Leonard “Kip” Rhinelander claimed that his new wife, Alice Beatrice Jones, had tricked him into believing she was white.
by Bryan Greene via Smithsonian on November 20, 2024
A stuffed bear in a room of empty children's beds at Willowbrook Hospital.

The Horrors of Hepatitis Research

The abusive experiments on mentally disabled children at Willowbrook State School were only one part of a much larger unethical research program.
by Carl Elliott via New York Review of Books on October 31, 2024
Campaign signs.
partner

The Long History of the 'October Surprise'

Last minute disclosures or revelations can play an outsized role in the last weeks before an election.
by Robert B. Mitchell via Made By History on October 24, 2024
A handwritten envelope for court documents in "The United States v. Thomas Chittenden."

Guilty as Charged

Convicting Vermont’s first governor.
by Gary Shattuck via Journal of the American Revolution on September 26, 2024
Pamela Harriman posing in an expensively decorated bedroom beside a four poster bed.

How a Mid-Century Paramour Became a Democratic Power Broker

Churchill weaponized her powers of seduction—but Pamela Harriman came into her own when she brought her glamour to Washington.
by Margaret Talbot via The New Yorker on September 16, 2024
Seymour Hersh, Henry Kissinger, and Hersh's newspaper article about the CIA scandal.

The CIA-in-Chile Scandal at 50

Documents show Henry Kissinger misled President Gerald Ford about clandestine U.S. efforts to undermine the elected government of Salvador Allende.
by Peter Kornbluh via National Security Archive on September 9, 2024
Autographed photo of Richard Nixon and Jerelle Kraus.

Two and a Half Hours Alone with Nixon, the Anti-Trump

When Nixon practiced law, he declined divorce cases because he disliked frank sexual talk from women. Trump asked Playboy to run a “Girls of Trump” feature.
by Jerelle Kraus via LA Progressive on August 6, 2024
Protestors and counter-protestors face off holding flags and posters.

Two Americas?

Heather Cox Richardson argues that there are two Americas: one interested in equality, the other in hierarchy. But it's not that simple.
by Nicholas Misukanis via Commonweal on August 6, 2024
John Dudley Sargent standing next to Edith Sargent.
partner

Something We Were Never Meant to See

Finding a story in the ways Robert Ray Hamilton, John Dudley Sargent, and Edith Sargent weren’t quite forgotten. 
by Maura Jane Farrelly via HNN on July 9, 2024
Pete Rose on a baseball diamond, head bowed.

For Pete’s Sake

A new book traces "the rise and fall of Pete Rose, and the last glory days of baseball."
by Christopher Caldwell via The Washington Free Beacon on May 12, 2024
The New York Times headquarters in Manhattan.

The ‘Times’ Is A-Changing

A new history of the ‘New York Times.’
by Paul Moses via Commonweal on January 7, 2024
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