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Featured Essays
Some writers ignore a mountain of evidence that is contrary to their theories about the telephone's development.
Our Founders profoundly transformed the way people participate in government.
Congress forbade living persons from appearing on paper currency in 1866, after an unpopular Treasury Department official put himself on the five-cent note.
The extravaganza celebrating the nation’s first century was the greatest cultural event of America’s Gilded Age.
America 250!
The Turning Point in the Revolutionary War | October 1997, Vol 48, No 6
By Richard M. Ketchum
“What, to the American Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” | Summer 2019, Vol 64, No 3
By Bruce WatsonIn what many consider the greatest anti-slavery oration ever given, Frederick Douglass called for “the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”
“The Die is Now Cast” | November/December 2024, Vol 69, No 5
By Joseph J. EllisAmerican resistance to British authority developed with stunning speed 250 years ago in response to George III’s inflexibility.
Making Sense of the Fourth of July | July/August 1997, Vol 48, No 4
By Pauline MaierThe Declaration of Independence is not what Thomas Jefferson thought it was when he wrote it, and that's why we celebrate it.
Glover and the “Indispensables” Save Washington’s Army | Spring 2024, Vol 69, No 2
By Patrick K. O'DonnellJohn Glover and the men of Marblehead saved the Continental Army several times, and then helped it cross the Delaware to victory at Trenton and Princeton.
Classic Essays from the Archives
How My Father and President Kennedy Saved The World | October 2002, Vol 53, No 5
By Sergei KhrushchevThe Cuban Missile Crisis as seen from the Kremlin
"The Sparck of Rebellion" | Winter 2010, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3
By Douglas BrinkleyBadly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.
The Conversion of Harry Truman | November 1991, Vol 42, No 7
By William E. LeuchtenburgA child of the South's "Lost Cause," Truman broke with his convictions to make civil rights a concern of the national government for the first time since Reconstruction. In so doing, he changed the nation forever.
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