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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 May 18, 2021

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 May 12, 2021

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 November 11, 2020

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 September 10, 2020

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 July 8, 2020

'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 February 18, 2020

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 February 10, 2020

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 January 10, 2020

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 December 6, 2019

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 November 25, 2019
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