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Jimmy Carter

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John F. Kennedy meeting with Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, 1961.

The Way We Understand the Cold War Is Wrong

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Japanese American National Museum Volunteer Barbara Keimi stamps the Ireichō

The Japanese American National Museum Is a Site of Remembrance and Belonging

The Japanese American National Museum embraces the Japanese-American experience in all its permutations.
Airplane tail with a bar code on it.

Who Gave Away the Skies to the Airlines?

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Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai
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How Nixon’s 1972 China Visit Set the Stage for Today’s Tensions Over Taiwan

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By Rejecting Evidence of Genocide in Gaza, the US Is Following a Familiar Pattern

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Print depicting a teacher and students at a freedmen's school in Vicksburg.

Why America’s First Department of Education Didn’t Last

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The Political Force Behind Zionism

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Workers with shovels constructing the Panama Canal.
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Trump’s Talk of the Panama Canal Taps Into Old Myths About U.S. Power

By threatening to reclaim the Panama Canal, Trump is evoking false stories about U.S. beneficence.
Perle Mesta laughing at a dinner party.

Washington’s Hostess with the Mostes’

Dinner parties in the capital have long been a path to power, but Perle Mesta had her eye on a different prize.
Demonstrators in 1977 hold signs protesting a treaty returning control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
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The Panama Canal Could Help Unify Trump's Fractious Movement

In the 1970s, a conservative coalition came together to fight ceding control of the Panama Canal—proving the political potency of the issue.
Ronald and Nancy Reagan smiling and waving at victory celebration.

Honey, I Forgot to Duck

Reagan’s capacity to inhabit and generate legend stemmed from his own impulse to substitute pleasing fictions for inconvenient facts.
President George W. Bush delivering the first State of the Union speech after the 9/11 attacks.

The Legacy of the ‘Axis of Evil’

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Frances Perkins
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Frances Perkins, Modern Politics, and Historical Memory

The current political moment is reshaping the narrative about the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet.
Jimmy Carter and Shah Pahlavi.

The US’s Long History of Destabilizing Iran

Kamala Harris called Iran a “destabilizing, dangerous force.” The appropriate context for this is the US’s own decades-long history of destabilizing Iran.

How John Lewis Put a Legacy of Heroism to Use

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Photographs of historian Zachary Schrag and his father Philip Schrag in front of a Nuclear War plan background

Two Generations of Nuclear Hopes and Nuclear Fears

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Eisenhower.
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The GOP's 72-Year-Old Inflation Playbook

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Barbara Ransby speaks to protesters at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March 20, 1987.

My Time Organizing on Campus Against Apartheid in South Africa

Black internationalism broadened our politics of solidarity.
A column of Soviet armored vehicles arrives to reinforce the military presence in Kabul on Jan. 30, 1980.

The Forgotten World War III Scare of 1980

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Jimmy Breslin.

The Breslin Era

The end of the big-city columnist.