Photograph of downtown Olean, New York

It Happened Here: Remembering One of America’s First Modern School Shootings, 50 Years Later

A teacher tells the story of 1974’s Olean, New York High School murders.
Frank Hallam, "En Masse Sunners Seen from Pier 45, 4/25/1982" (1982/2012) (collection of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, Gift of the artist)

When NYC’s Piers Were a Sanctuary for Gay Gathering 

In the 1960s, amid the shipping industry's decline, the empty piers became a site for cruising and creativity for gay men in particular.
Conservative protesters hold signs and flags at a Tea Party protest.

Lone Star Futures

Texas might have been a place to start a conversation about widening the scope of civil liberties, but it has also been a place where those liberties end.

The Heritage of Dylann Roof

Ten years after the Charleston massacre, reverence for the Confederacy that Roof idolized is going strong.
Visitors pose atop Arch Rock, a geological formation on Mackinac Island.

How America’s Second National Park Lost Its Federal Status—and Gained a New Life as a State Park

Much of Mackinac Island was designated as a national park, but was too expensive for the government to maintain, so it was transferred to the State of Michigan.
A monument to fallen Civil War soldiers with the New York City skyline in the background.

Green-Wood Cemetery’s Living Dead

How the “forever business” is changing at New York City’s biggest graveyard.

Nottoway Dishonored My Enslaved Ancestors. Why I Still Hated to See it Destroyed.

Material history, including at places such as Nottoway, has messages for people studying Black history.
The U.S.-Canada border, as seen in this satellite map, mostly runs along the 49th parallel — and wasn't chosen at random.

Trump Calls the U.S.-Canada Border an "Artificial Line." That's not Entirely True.

Just because it's man-made doesn't mean it's not legitimate.
Drawing of cowboys riding in the desert, guns drawn, while a herd grazes.

The Hell We Raised: How Texas Shaped the Gunfighter Era

Texans left an enduring mark on the gunfighter era. The frontier was a darker place because of it.
Glass etching superimposed on park landscape to visualize where buildings were.

America’s Forgotten Capital City

At Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texans flex their go-it-alone style.
Harvard University "veritas" seal displayed on flags on its campus.

Harvard Stood Up to Trump. Too Bad the School Wasn’t Always So Brave.

The university’s last “finest hour” was more than 200 years ago.
Miami's skyline with high-rises under construction.

How Dreams of Buried Pirate Treasure Enticed Americans to Flock to Florida

1925 marked the peak of the Florida land boom. But false advertising and natural disasters thwarted many settlers’ visions of striking it rich.
View of New Amsterdam from the 1620s.

The Dutch Roots of American Liberty

New York would never be the Puritans' austere city on a hill, yet it became America’s vibrant heart of capitalism.
Harvester on farmland.

America’s Pernicious Rural Myth

An interview with Steven Conn about his new book, “Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is—and Isn’t.”
Promotional flyer for Zorita’s 1949 film, I Married a Savage, ca. 1949. In addition to her attire and the fact that she’s featured alongside her signature snake and her “Jungle Queens,” the film’s plot was anchored in deeply racialized, “exotic” tropes that were made more palatable to general audiences through the prism of her whiteness, femininity, and sexuality. Courtesy of the Tawny Petillo Collection.

Zorita in Miami

A queer Southern history.
Sign in forest reading "Move Oregon's Border. Greateridaho.org."
partner

The Danger of Adjusting State Borders

A movement for some Illinois counties to join Indiana threatens to resurrect an ominous practice from the 19th century.
Map of Boston in 1776.

Terrains of Independence

Why was Boston and Massachusetts the site of so much early Revolutionary activity?
KKK members parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., on August 8, 1925.

When the KKK Came to D.C.

Revisiting a 1925 march through the eyes of Black newspapers.
Aerial view of Oakland.

The Future Happens in Oakland First. That’s a Cautionary Tale for Global Cities

International trade boomed with the city’s early adoption of technological and economic changes, but Black neighborhoods became ‘sacrifice zones.’
A young boy peers out from a hole in a fence as his friends play basketball in a court where police officers are gathering for a patrol.

How White-Collar Criminals Plundered a Brooklyn Neighborhood

How East New York was ransacked by the real estate industry and abandoned by the city in the process.
A painting of a Staten Island harbor filled with boats, captioned "View of the Marine Hospital and Quarantine Grounds, Staten Island, New York."

Quarantine Scenes in Staten Island History

Staten Island's long battle against quarantine restrictions, from yellow fever to COVID-19.
A drawing of a ship firing cannons at another vessel.

On the Colonial Power Struggle That Would Give Birth to the City of New York

For historian Russell Shorto, it was all about water.
Front entrance of the abandoned Florida Solite plant.

The Machine in the Garden

After decades of unchecked hazardous waste pollution, a Florida hamlet fights the developers eager to build homes there anyway.
A flooded road.

Jamestown Is Sinking

In the Tidewater region of Virginia, history is slipping beneath the waves. In the Anthropocene, a complicated past is vanishing.

Donald Trump on Mount Rushmore Would Make More Historical Sense Than You Think

That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.

‘This Land Is Yours’

The missing Black history of upstate New York challenges the delusion of New York as a land of freedom far removed from the American original sin of slavery.
Collage of Chinese laborers.

When an American Town Massacred Its Chinese Immigrants

In 1885, white rioters murdered dozens of their Asian neighbors in Rock Springs, Wyoming. 140 years later, the story of the atrocity is still being unearthed.
A line of people swearing in as Ghanaian citizens.

The Land Disputes Facing African Americans in Ghana

Locals complain of losing out as wealthier ‘returnees’ from abroad secure prime real estate.
Bethlehem Steel Mill.

The Steel Mill That Built America

Bethlehem Steel was the birthplace of skyscrapers, bridges, and battleships. What happened after the plant's furnaces went cold?
A settler and a Native American shaking hands amidst a mosaic of huckleberries.

The True Cost of the Huckleberrry Industry

The Ḱamíłpa Band of the Yakama Nation has wanted an end to commercial picking of a critical cultural resource for years.