AMERICAN HERITAGE

Featured Articles

Discovered: First Maps of the American Revolution

Previously unknown, a map drawn by Lord Percy, the British commander at Lexington, sheds new light on the perilous retreat to Boston 250 years ago this month.

The Shots Heard Round the World

by John Ferling

What began as a civil war within the British Empire continued until it became a wider conflict affecting peoples and countries across Europe and North America.

The Forgotten Battle of Menotomy

by Michael Ruderman

Overshadowed in memory by Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts town of Menotomy saw the most violent and deadly fighting on April 19, 1775.

Drama at the Old North Bridge

by Rick Atkinson

“Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end,” said one minuteman after the fight.

Limits on Presidential Power from FDR to Trump

by Todd Belt

What does history tell us about presidents who have tried to push the limits of the system?

Classic Essays from Our Archives

“Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead” | August 1959, Vol 10, No 5

By Barbara W. Tuchman

John Hay’s ringing phrase helped nominate T. R., but it covered an embarrassing secret that remained concealed for thirty years.

"I Had Prayed to God That This Thing Was Fiction…" | February 1990, Vol 41, No 1

By William Wilson

He didn’t want the job, but felt he should do it. For the first time, the soldier who tracked down the My Lai story for the office of the inspector general in 1969 tells what it was like to do some of this era’s grimmest detective work.

Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other? | Fall 2008, Vol 70, No 3

By Annette Gordon-Reed

To call it loaded question does not begin to do justice to the matter, given America’s tortured racial history and its haunting legacy.

Herbert Hoover Describes the Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson | June 1958, Vol 9, No 4

By Herbert Hoover

The great tragedy of the twenty-eighth President as witnessed by his loyal lieutenant, the thirty-first.

The Slave Who Sued for Freedom | March 1990, Vol 41, No 2

By Jon Swan

While the American Revolution was still being fought, Mum Bett declared that the new nation’s principle of liberty must extend to her, too. It took 80 years and a far-more-terrible war to confirm the rights that she had demanded.

Lincoln and Presidential Character | October 2020, Vol 65, No 6

By David S. Reynolds

Abraham Lincoln learned much of what made him a great president — honesty, sincerity, toughness, and humility — from his early reading and from studying the lives of Washington and Franklin.

Today in History

Fort Pulaski surrenders

Union cannon bombard Fort Pulaski along the Savannah River, forcing the Confederate garrison to surrender. The loss of Fort Pulaski effectively closed Savannah to Confederate blockade runners and demonstrated the ineffectiveness of masonry forts against modern artillery.
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Truman relieves MacArthur

President Harry S. Truman relieves General Douglas MacArthur from commanding United Nations forces during the Korean War. MacArthur had made several insubordinate comments that had undermined President Truman's foreign policies and sought a widespread expansion of the conflict.
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LBJ signs Civil Rights Act of 1968

President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968 into law, opening housing opportunities to all Americans regardless of race, ethnicity, or creed. Widely considered the Fair Housing Act, the law enforced previous fair housing provisions and ensured federal protection.