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George Washington's Lesson for COVID-19 Vaccine Skeptics

This history carries a lesson for present-day holdouts against COVID-19 vaccines

By Robert Brent Toplin / History News Network

The Surprising Political History of the Fight Against the Equal Rights Amendment

Discussion of the ERA often focuses on the way the New Right stopped ratification by the states in the 1970s. But earlier opposition to the proposed amendment involved a bipartisan and ideologically diverse coalition in Congress

By Rebecca de Wolf / History News Network

Alexis de Tocqueville's Warning About Presidential Elections

Tocqueville's writing shows that divisive elections are nothing new—but that what happens after the election has definitely changed

By Kevin M. Cherry / History News Network

John Adams Lost His Re-Election. How He Responded Set a Precedent That's Been Followed for More Than 200 Years

One thing that John Adams never did was to voice a word of regret about leaving the presidency at his term’s end. None of his successors has ever violated or dishonored the precedent he established

By R. B. Bernstein / History News Network

150 Years Ago, the Senate Chose Not to Equalize Access to U.S. Citizenship. The Consequences Were Dire

Senator Charles Sumner lost his battle on the Fourth of July 1870, with dire consequences for both Asian immigrant communities and the prospects of a more racially egalitarian America

By Lucy Salyer / History News Network

'Free College' in Historical Perspective

One intriguing clue comes from a 1947 report commissioned by then-President Harry Truman

By John Thelin / History News Network

Today's Presidential Candidates Go Where the Voters Are—But These Past Campaigns Succeeded by Bringing the Voters to the Candidates

No presidential electioneering technique has ever been so successful while so short-lived

By Jeffrey Normand Bourdon / History News Network

Scientists Have Been Talking About Climate Change for More Than a Century. Here's Why It Took So Long for the World to Listen

The scientific consensus on climate change is far older than many people think

By David Carlin / History News Network

What Alexander Hamilton Would Have Thought About a Wealth Tax

All taxation was on the framers’ table as they considered a new constitution. What would they make of the measures we are considering now?

By Ray Raphael / History News Network

The History of Modern Mass Incarceration of African Americans Goes Deeper Than You May Think

A Louisiana law of 1848 declared that children born to enslaved female prisoners confined in the penitentiary belonged to the state

By Jeff Forret / History News Network

When the Suez Canal Opened 150 Years Ago, It Helped Connect the World—And Heralded the Climate Crisis

The largest infrastructural project of the 19th century annexed the Middle East into the fossil-fuels complex

By On Barak / History News Network

America's Founders Disagreed About Impeachment. Here's How the Idea Made It Into the Constitution

“This Magistrate is not the king! The people are the king!”

By Harlow Giles Unger / History News Network

A Century Ago, African Americans Were Massacred in Elaine, Ark. We're Still Reckoning With That Moment

Elaine was a turning point, but it was only one of many

By Michael K. Honey / History News Network

Before the Berlin Wall, the KGB Used a Familiar Tool to Undermine Democracy in Germany: Disinformation

In one fell swoop, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower later said, Khrushchev had turned Berlin “into a tinderbox.”

By Steve Vogel / History News Network

The Forgotten History of the Native Americans Who Helped the Underground Railroad

There are at least two primary reasons for the absence of Native Americans in the historiography of the Underground Railroad

By Roy E. Finkenbine / History News Network

'I Have Only One More Test to Pass.' The Enduring Message of the Last Letters From WWII's Captured French Resisters

They were allowed to write home before being executed

By Ronald C. Rosbottom / History News Network

'This Might Be My Last Night': What Chaplains Saw in World War II

"If ever I felt that I ought to be five priests it was that week"

By John Wukovits / History News Network

Both the U.S. and Haiti Claim Navassa Island. Here's Why Its History Matters

Haiti has never relinquished its claim to Navassa, and its citizens have continued to flout U.S. authority

By Ken Lawrence / History News Network

The Lesson of America's Most Famous World War I Draft Dodger

He was just one of 337,649 men who had been declared guilty of the offense

By Dirk Langeveld / History News Network

The Value of Ranking the U.S. Presidents

They foster lively debate about contemporary presidents and even help resurface some of our most obscure presidents

By Susan Swain / History News Network
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