Abraham Lincoln

The actions of attorneys general in California and other states have their antecedents in the fight against that draconian law.

Twenty-one historians explain which moments in history are closest to the Trump election - and what we can learn.

Why Pilgrims would be stunned by our "traditional" Thanksgiving table, and other surprising truths about the invention of our national holiday.

In the 1820s, Sarah Hale, a New England widow and the editor of Godey’s Ladies Book made it her mission to get Thanksgiving recognized as a national holiday.

Black veterans were once targeted for racialized violence because of the equality with whites that their military service implied.

For some time now, the answer has not been the abolitionists.

Some issues are too fundamental for a party to withstand, and the consequences can last for a generation.

They were enormous, tech-savvy, and invasive in their methods—and they enlisted Abraham Lincoln into their ranks.

How do you diagnose the problem of racism in America without understanding its actual history?

President Obama espouses a facile faith in history bending toward perfection and morality-against evidence and reason.

The 20th century produced monuments to a false consensus—can the 21st century create a more representative commemorative sphere?

Another way to look at controversial historical figures.

160 years ago, a similarly fractured GOP took months to settle on a speaker.

The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it.

The internecine conflict and the institution of slavery could not and did not end neatly at Appomattox or on Galveston Island.

The menu of Emancipation Day.

On April 27, 1865, a steamboat named the Sultana exploded and an estimated 1,800 people died, but few today have heard of this disaster.

April 15 may be Tax Day, but for some, it’s the 14th of April that’s notorious.

Meet Boston Corbett, the self-castrated hatmaker who was John Wilkes Booth's Jack Ruby.

More than 150 years after Appomattox, Americans are still fighting over the great issues at the heart of the conflict.