Benjamin Franklin

Why should a country want or need allies? President Donald Trump and his followers seem to disdain the idea. So did George Washington.

The left case for an independent Canada.

After February 28, 1967, the main reason to go was to get a job.

The founders anticipated someone like Trump partly because they’d been reading Edward Gibbon’s 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'

“The Bookshop” tells the story of American bookstores in thirteen types. Its true subject is not how bookstore can survive, but how they should be.

Many founders expressed their hope that slavery would be abolished, while simultaneously exerting themselves to defend it.

The magical in-betweenness—and surprising epidemiological history—of the porch.

The Phrygian cap, also known as the liberty cap, emerged as a potent symbol in 18th-century America and France.

We can thank the postal service for establishing the foundations of the American tradition of communications confidentiality.

The enduring necessity (and importance) of a nearly 200-year-old technology.

What role does age play in determining the status of equals?

The dumping of tons of tea in protest set the stage for the American Revolution and was a window on the culture and attitudes of the time.

Marbled paper was a way to make banknotes and checks unique—a critical characteristic for a nascent American Republic.

On Walter Isaacson’s biographical project.

For what did these Americans endure such painful hardship and sacrifice? For what were they taking such a significant stand? Surely, it wasn’t just about tea!

In early America, the soaring ideals behind establishing a new democracy were marked by cycles of progress and backlash.

Almanacs from the Civil War era reveal how two sides of an embattled nation used data from the natural world to legitimize their claims to statehood.

Opposition to British policy was justified. Destroying 342 crates of tea worth nearly $2 million in today’s money wasn’t.

The black naturalist, astronomer, surveyor, and almanac-writer Benjamin Banneker took issue with Thomas Jefferson’s attitude toward “those of my complexion.”

Barely-disguised hostilities sometimes belied the rebels’ declared identity as the United States of America.