Four hundred years ago this year, two momentous events happened in Britain’s fledgling colony in Virginia: the New World’s first democratic assembly convened, and an English privateer brought kidnapped Africans to sell as slaves. Such were the conflicted origins of modern America.

A preeminent author recalls his experience as one of America's first combat historians, among a handful of men who accompanied soldiers into the bloodiest battles to write history as it was being made

We've gotten one farce after another from the secretive judges at the Swedish Academy who confer the world's most prestigious prize for literature

For most of the 1800s, whites in blackface performed in widely popular minstrel shows, creating racist stereotypes that endured for more than a century.