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1850s engraving of the Boston Massacre

Black Lives and the Boston Massacre

John Adams’s famous defense of the British may not be, as we’ve understood it, an expression of principle and the rule of law.

Protesting Law Enforcement Is as Old as America Itself

Had British authorities and their soldiers exercised de-escalation tactics, would the United States exist today?
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Donald Trump’s Use of the “Star-Spangled Banner” Is an American Tradition

It's a short song with a complicated history.
George Washington resigning his commission as commander of the Army
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Why George Washington Rejected a Military Parade in his Honor

Of all the precedents the first president set, this is one of his most overlooked — and most important.
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Boston Commons

The innovations, and the prejudices, that have shaped the landscape and the community of the "hub of the universe."

Just Like Us

Boston and Providence meet the famous Siamese twins, Chang and Eng Bunker.

Boston’s Most Radical TV Show Blew the Minds of a Stoned Generation in 1967

When a Tufts instructor launched the trippy TV show on WGBH, it was unlike anything viewers had ever seen.

The Untold Story of the Pentagon Papers Co-Conspirators

A historian reveals the crucial role that he played in helping Daniel Ellsberg leak the documents to journalists.

From Liberty Tree to Taking a Knee

How America's founding era sheds light on the NFL controversy.
Photograph William H. Mumler claimed was of Mary Lincoln with Abraham Lincoln's ghost.

Meet Mr. Mumler, the Man Who “Captured” Lincoln’s Ghost on Camera

When America’s first aerial cameraman met an infamous spirit photographer, the chemistry was explosive.
Demonstrators hold signs arguing to "Save Sacco & Vanzetti"

Is There a Place in Public History for Sacco and Vanzetti?

Ninety years after the duo was executed, there are virtually no physical markers in Boston commemorating them.
Independence Day Celebration in Centre Square by John Lewis Krimmel (1787–1821).

The Brief Period, 200 Years Ago, When American Politics Was Full of “Good Feelings”

James Monroe’s 1817 goodwill tour kicked off a decade of party-less government – but he couldn’t stop the nation from dividing again.

The Woman Whose Words Inflamed the American Revolution

Mercy Otis Warren used her wit to agitate for independence.
Busy horse and buggy outside of North Station in Boston.

The Frontiers of American Capitalism

Noam Maggor’s new book captures how it took both sides of the American continent to revitalize the economy after the Civil War.
Boston Herald assistant publisher W.G. Gavin at the “Rumor Clinic,” 1942.

During WWII, 'Rumor Clinics' Were Set Up to Dispel Morale-Damaging Gossip

A network of "morale wardens" tracked down the latest scuttlebutt.

Policing the Colony: From the American Revolution to Ferguson

King George's tax collectors abused police powers to fill his coffers. Sound familiar?

Nativism, Violence, and the Origins of the Paranoid Style

How a lurid 19th-century memoir of sexual abuse produced one of the ugliest features of American politics.

The Core Concepts of American Public Broadcasting Turn 50

An analysis of the Carnegie Commission's 1967 report shows that public broadcasting has always been a politically fraught issue.

The Accidental Patriots

Many Americans could have gone either way during the Revolution.
A painting of Boston harbor, where women in dresses stand on a hill, watching ships
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Invisible Cities, Continued

The 19th century recovery of John Winthrop's sermon, "A City on a Hill."
Part of a portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner

The Scandalous Legacy of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Collector of Art and Men

Long before the gallery she built was famously robbed, Isabella Stewart Gardner was shocking 19th-century society with her disregard for convention.
Political cartoon depicting children recoiling from Catholic bishops crawling onto the beach with their robes and hats making them look like crocodiles.

When America Hated Catholics

In the late 19th century, statesmen feared that Catholics were something less than civilized (and less than white).
Photograph of Boston Corbett

The Insane Story of the Guy Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln

Meet Boston Corbett, the self-castrated hatmaker who was John Wilkes Booth's Jack Ruby.
A man at a Tea Party rally in 2010, dressed in colonial clothes and standing in front of a Don't Treat On Me flag with his fist raised.
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Teed Off

Did the 2010 Tea Party Movement really have anything in common with 1773? What did the history of populism suggest about the Tea Party's future?

Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates: The Problem With Popularization

Making history more appealing to the public may come at a cost.

Mohawks, Mohocks, Hawkubites, Whatever

Down and dirty in eighteenth-century London and Boston.

Phillis Wheatley: an Eighteenth-Century Genius in Bondage

Vincent Carretta takes a look at the remarkable life of the first ever African-American woman to be published.
John Harvard statue by Daniel Chester French.

Reading Puritans and the Bard

Without the bawdy world of Falstaff and Prince Hal and of Shakespeare’s jesters, there would have been nothing for those dissenting Puritans to dissent from.
Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennet

The Frenemies Who Fought to Bring Birth Control to the U.S.

Though Margaret Sanger and Mary Ware Dennett shared a mission, they took very different approaches. Their rivalry was political, sometimes even personal.
The original cover sketch of "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go," by Richard Scarry, with cartoon animals in vehicles.

On Richard Scarry and the Art of Children's Literature

Scarry’s guides to life both reflected and bolstered kids’ lived experience, and in some cases even provided the template for it.
Photograph of young students getting off a school bus.

Public Schools Really Can Save America

America's public schools were founded on the ideal of uniting rich and poor, but inequality persists due to racial, income, and systemic divides.

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