Martin Van Buren

In 1838, as the U.S. began its Exploring Expedition to the South Seas, Edgar Allan Poe published a novel that masqueraded as a travelogue.

When the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith ran for president, he wasn’t seeking further glory but a policy change in religious liberty.

In becoming the party of Trump, the G.O.P. confronts the kind of existential crisis that has destroyed American parties in the past.

Her name was Julia Chinn.

A cat named Miss Pussy! A racist parrot! Benjamin Harrison’s possums, which he later ate!

Perpetual outsiders, Mormons spent 200 years assimilating to a certain national ideal—only to find their country in an identity crisis.

History is asking only one question right now as Trump refuses to concede. Will the Republicans decide they are no longer an American political party?

How the myth of a liberal North erases a long history of white violence.

Most recent scholarship, while supporting the view that the policy was vicious, has not addressed the question of genocide.

After the Whig president’s shocking death, his vice president and successor proved to be a Whig by expedience only

Outlandish rumors helped elect Presidents Jackson and Van Buren and have been with us ever since.

How a cheesy joke from the 1830s became one of the most widely spoken words in the world.

We have the Swedes and William Henry Harrison to thank for the popularization of the log cabin.

The financial world is a theatrical production, abundantly lubricated by that magical elixir of illusionists: confidence.

Bipartisanship is the exception, not the rule.

The U.S. Constitution guaranteed freedom of religion, but the fight for religious equality was only just beginning.

What America’s last major party crack-up in the 1850s tells us about the 2010s.

Is 2016 worse than 1348? And 1836? And 1919?

The crazy history of nominating Conventions.

Andrew Jackson deserves nothing but contempt from modern America, not a place on our currency.