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History
Books
Education
Civil Rights
Race
remembrance
How Martin Luther King Jr. Changed His Mind About America
By Kermit Roosevelt III
The Little-Known History of One Ship’s Battle Against the Slave Trade
By A.E. Rooks
I Searched for Answers About My Enslaved Ancestor
By Imani Perry
A New Report Finds That 45 States Are 'Failing' to Teach Students About the Period That Shaped Race Relations After the Civil War
By Olivia B. Waxman
More in
History
What the History of the Word "Insurrection" Says About Jan. 6
Ever since a mostly white mob stormed the U.S. Capitol after attending a Trump-headlined “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6, 2021, there has been an ongoing and heated debate over whether to call the...
By Hawa Allan
January 7, 2022
Louisiana Gov. Pardons Homer Plessy, 125 Years After SCOTUS ‘Separate But Equal’ Ruling
On Jan. 11, 1897, Homer Plessy pleaded guilty in a New Orleans district court for sitting in a whites-only train car, eight months after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Louisiana’s Separate Car Act and a...
By Olivia B. Waxman
January 5, 2022
Watch: 4 Moments to Remember From 2021
From innovations that are shaping our future to a past that we're only just beginning to grapple with
By TIME Video
December 30, 2021
Harry Reid, Understated Political Strategist, Dies
The former Senate Majority Leader knew his greatest strength was not soaring rhetoric but the inside game
By Molly Ball
December 28, 2021
25 Years Later, the Murder of JonBenét Ramsey Remains Unsolved—and Issues It Highlighted Persist
On Dec. 26, 1996, 6-year-old child beauty pageant contestant JonBenét Ramsey was found dead in the basement of the family’s Boulder, Colo. home, along with a ransom note asking for $118,000. Autopsy results released in...
By Olivia B. Waxman
December 23, 2021
What Ancient Laws Can Teach Us About Holding Autocrats to Account Today
The rule of law, democracy and human rights: these are the achievements of the modern nation state, or so we generally believe. Previous generations laid the ground with the Magna Carta, the U.S. Constitution, and...
By Fernanda Pirie
December 23, 2021
Why It’s Time to Shed Some Light on History’s ‘Dark Ages’
Today, the Middle Ages are a sort of paradox; the myth of the “Dark Ages,” which survives quite ably in popular culture, allows space for it to be whatever the popular imagination wants. When people...
By Matthew Gabriele
December 22, 2021
The Grim History of Christmas for Enslaved People in the Deep South
Amid contentious national pushback over how much of the full history of slavery in the United States should be taught in schools, the holiday season represents a particularly overlooked period. Around the time Christmas was...
By Olivia B. Waxman
December 21, 2021
What History Reveals About Vaccine Hesitancy Today
The agonizingly slow upward creep of the U.S. COVID vaccination rate, coupled with the emergence of the Omicron variant, has observers speaking in tones of gloom. What is wrong with people who refuse to get...
By Jeanne Abrams
December 17, 2021
The U.S. Almost Had Universal Childcare 50 Years Ago. The Same Attacks Might Kill It Today
Among the policy proposals included in the "Build Back Better" Act championed by the Biden administration and congressional Democrats is legislation the White House describes as "the largest investment in childcare in the nation's history."...
By Olivia B. Waxman
December 9, 2021
3 Myths About Pearl Harbor, According to a Military Historian
Tuesday marks the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, killing some 2,400 American servicemen and leading the U.S. to enter World War II. And 80 years later, myths...
By Olivia B. Waxman
December 7, 2021
How World Leaders’ Reactions to Pearl Harbor Changed World War II
Within half an hour of the bombs falling on Hawaii, the phone rang in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s study. When the navy secretary came on the line, his voice was quavering: “Mr. President, it looks...
By Brendan Simms
December 7, 2021
What America Owes Black Veterans of World War II
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 1.2 million black servicemen and women were among the 16 million Americans who answered the call to defend our country and protect democracy abroad. The irony of fighting...
By Rep. Jim Clyburn
December 7, 2021
America Learned the Wrong Lessons From Pearl Harbor
On Tuesday, December 7, 2021, we will remember Pearl Harbor, the 1941 Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base on Oahu, Hawaii, for the eightieth time. It is a ritual remembrance that has much to...
By Elizabeth D. Samet
December 6, 2021
Bob Dole, Senate Legend Who Championed Compromise, Dies
Nothing in Dole’s life was easy, and that’s the way he wanted it
By Nancy Gibbs
December 5, 2021
Why This Trans Boy Had More Rights a Century Ago Than Many Trans Kids Today
More than 100 years ago at Craigievar Castle in Scotland, Ewan Forbes’ mother realized her 6-year-old was a boy, despite it saying “female” on his birth certificate. Instead of sending him to boarding school like...
By Zoë Playdon
December 2, 2021
The ‘First Thanksgiving’ Story Covers Up the All Too Real Violence in Early America
The 17th century is having a moment. In 2019, the world observed the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia. This year marks 400 years since English Pilgrims and Wampanoags...
By Peter C. Mancall
November 24, 2021
How Tribe That Fed Pilgrims Spends Thanksgiving
It’s been 400 years since the meal known as the first Thanksgiving took place in Patuxet, the area now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts. Two prominent figures in the Plymouth Colony described it as a three-day...
By Olivia B. Waxman
November 23, 2021
The History of Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamations
Presidential Thanksgiving proclamations are always a reflection of the office, the country and the stakes of the given cultural moment
By Denise Kiernan
November 23, 2021
The 'Vindicating' Exoneration of 2 Men Convicted of Malcolm X Killing
On Nov. 18, Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam—convicted of the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X—were exonerated after serving more than 20 years in prison. When I saw the news I thought, wow, this is significant....
By Zaheer Ali
November 19, 2021
How a Powhatan Tribal Chief Became One of Colonial America’s Greatest Military Leaders
During the late sixteenth century, a great American Indian chiefdom arose along the mid-Atlantic coast of North America. Named Tsenacommacah (densely inhabited land) by the peoples who lived along the rivers and shores of the...
By James Horn
November 17, 2021
Librarians Grapple With Conservatives’ Latest Efforts to Ban Books
On Nov. 8, two members of a Virginia school board called for a book burning. During a board meeting that evening, the Spotsylvania County Public School Board unanimously ordered its school libraries to begin removing...
By Olivia B. Waxman
November 15, 2021
What the True Story of Buffalo Bill Reveals About the Myth of the Wild West
Buffalo Bill is onstage engaged in fierce battle. He and his scouts are fighting a ferocious group of Cheyenne warriors. The audience holds its breath as the terrifying Cheyenne appear to be gaining the upper...
By Ijeoma Olou
November 12, 2021
The Complex History Behind
Belfast
—and Its Echoes in Present-Day Northern Ireland
Kenneth Branagh's semi-autobiographical drama is set against the backdrop of escalating violence in late-1960s Northern Ireland
By Alison Garden
November 11, 2021
Why Four Black Women Stood Up to the U.S. Army During WWII
Earlier this year, the women of the 6888th Postal Battalion Directory got a step closer to finally receiving the recognition they deserve. The Senate passed legislation to award the only all-Black Women’s Army Corps (WACs)...
By Kaia Alderson
November 11, 2021
What Early Drafts of Slaughterhouse-Five Reveal About Kurt Vonnegut's Struggles
In the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 anti-war masterpiece about a hapless American soldier who becomes “unstuck in time,” the author indicates that he wrote more than five thousand pages by 1965. But...
By Tom Roston
November 11, 2021
What the 1893 World's Fair Teaches Us About White Feminism Today
In November of 1890, a group of women called the Board of Lady Managers gathered in Chicago, a city that had been chosen as the site for the World’s Fair of 1893. The fairgrounds, an...
By Rafia Zakaria
November 9, 2021
America's Last King Was No Crazy Tyrant
I loved Hamilton: An American Musical for its foot-tapping tunes and witty libretto, but it’s no more an accurate portrayal of history than Shakespeare’s Richard III or Macbeth. For the cruel prancing camp sadist portrayed...
By Andrew Roberts
November 9, 2021
The Impact of Magic Johnson's HIV Disclosure, 30 Years On
For many watching Earvin “Magic” Johnson on television on Nov. 7, 1991, his words were tantamount to an announcement of his own death sentence. In a press conference hastily convened by Johnson and the Los...
By Francine Uenuma
November 4, 2021
How Christians Eager to Unearth the Biblical Past Sparked Strife in Jerusalem
When an Israeli court ruled last month that Jews could pray on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—if it was done quietly—the surprise decision seemed sure to spark yet another round of unrest in a city...
By Andrew Lawler
November 3, 2021
The Real Black Cowboys That Inspired Netflix's
The Harder They Fall
While the Netflix film is fictional, its characters take their names from real historical figures, like Nat Love and Stagecoach Mary. These are their stories.
By Andrew R. Chow
November 3, 2021
Japan's Royal Women and Their History of Mental Stress
The former princess Mako Komuro is not the only Japanese royal to have experienced issues related to mental wellbeing
By Chad de Guzman
November 3, 2021
Benjamin Franklin Regretted Not Inoculating Son From Smallpox
Parents of elementary school children received great news last week; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children 5-11 years old. The Centers for Disease Control...
By Olivia B. Waxman
November 2, 2021
The Long History of Vaccinating Kids in School
Now that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids aged 5 to 11, the Biden Administration has signaled that it will rely on a “trusted messenger” to get...
By Tara Law
November 1, 2021
The Many Lives of H. Rap Brown
He sits in prison after decades of fighting for Black liberation, forgotten by the nation that never understood him
By Rembert Browne
November 1, 2021
The 19th Century Advocate For 'Free Love' and Women's Liberty
When the roots of modern-day polyamory, sexual freedom, and "free love" are discussed, they're often traced back to the 1960s—the era of hippies, the movement for queer rights, and the “sexual revolution.” But in the...
By Olivia B. Waxman
October 29, 2021
Why Fannie Lou Hamer’s Message on Economic Justice Endures Today
Addressing a crowd in Madison, Wisc., in 1971, civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer said she knew what it meant to be hungry. She recalled growing up in the 1920s and 1930s in a sharecropping...
By Keisha N. Blain
October 27, 2021
In Lawsuit Against Texas Redistricting Maps, Plaintiffs See History Repeating
They argue that the new maps would depress Latino voter representation in the state
By Janell Ross
October 22, 2021
Kiyoshi Kuromiya Helped AIDS Patients Get Life-Saving Info
About a twenty-minute walk from the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, in a city of sites dedicated to heroes of the American Revolution, there's a tribute to a hero of the city’s LGBTQ+ community at the...
By Olivia B. Waxman
October 21, 2021
How Climate Chaos Helped Spark the French Revolution
Historians have long observed the links between the natural environment and the fate of civilization. Natural emergencies like droughts, floods and crop failure regularly plunge people into chaos. Long term changes in the earth’s climatic...
By Mike Duncan
October 20, 2021
Why We Can't Ignore Our Dreams
On Mar. 14, 44 B.C.E., Julius Caesar dreamed of flying up through the clouds, until being warmly received by Jupiter. His wife, Calpurnia, however, had a nightmare in which he got stabbed. The following morning,...
By Sidarta Ribeiro
October 18, 2021
How History Erased the Black Mariner Who ‘Opened’ the Pacific
In grade school and beyond, we learn about Christopher Columbus and his pioneering voyage of 1492. Merely two decades after it, however, European explorers stumbled on the Pacific, an ocean roughly twice as large as...
By Andrés Reséndez
October 18, 2021
What the History of Money Says About Its Future
We may be on the cusp of a currency shift now
By Jacob Goldstein
October 15, 2021
The True Story Behind
The Last Duel
—and History’s Attempt to Erase It
The new historical drama starring Jodie Comer, Matt Damon and Adam Driver tells the story of Marguerite de Carrouges. What happened after the events of the film is just as fascinating
By John-Paul Heil
October 15, 2021
Lessons From the 'Empresses' of Ancient Rome
Artists have failed to depict a complete set of Roman empresses, but we can still learn from the individual stories of those ancient women
By Mary Beard
October 12, 2021
The Overlooked LGBTQ+ History of the Harlem Renaissance
Acknowledging the queer culture of the Harlem Renaissance is essential in order to paint a full picture of the period
By Olivia B. Waxman
October 11, 2021
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