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Featured Essays

Recent rehabilitation of this important site at the Gettysburg battlefield provides a much improved experience for visitors.

A Chinatown cook's fight to re-enter the U.S. in 1895 went up to the Supreme Court, which upheld his claim to birthright citizenship and guaranteed it for all through the 14th Amendment. 

Dickinson played a pivotal role in our Nation’s founding, from the Stamp Act to ratifying the Constitution, but his contributions are largely forgotten by history.

Some delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted a strong executive, while others feared the American president might become a king.

America 250!

"The Sparck of Rebellion" | Winter 2010, Summer 2025, Vol 59, No 4

By Douglas Brinkley

Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.

boston tea party

Drama at the Old North Bridge | Spring 2025, Vol 70, No 2

By Rick Atkinson

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

drama at old north bridge

Big Guns For Washington | April 1955, Vol 6, No 3

By Clay Perry

How tough Henry Knox hauled a train of cannon over wintry trails to help drive the British away from Boston

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Discovered: First Maps of the American Revolution  | Spring 2025, Vol 70, No 2

By Edwin S. Grosvenor

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.

first maps

The Revolution Could Have Started Here | Summer 2024, Vol 69, No 3

By Bob Thompson

At a curious stone tower in Somerville, Massachusetts, panic in 1774 could have sparked a war seven months before Lexington and Concord entered the history books.

boston map

Classic Essays from the Archives

Searching for “Shenandoah” | Winter 2022, Summer 2025, Vol 67, No 1

By Bruce Watson

It's one of the oldest folk ballads in our national songbook, but where did it come from? The answer is complex, multi-layered, American.

trapper family

“The Miraculous Care Of Providence” | February/March 1982, Vol 33, No 2

By James Thomas Flexner

George Washington’s Narrow Escapes

washington princeton

"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.

my lai

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