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Featured Essays
Some writers ignore a mountain of evidence that is contrary to their theories about the telephone's development.
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.
At the nation’s pivotal moment — the Civil War — two seventeenth-century vessels kept sailing through the American mind: the Mayflower and the slaver White Lion. Their wakes still cut our waters.
America 250!
Patriots or Terrorists? | Fall 2008, Vol 58, No 5
By Edwin G. BurrowsThe Lost Story of Revolutionary War POW’s
The Turning Point in the Revolutionary War | October 1997, Vol 48, No 6
By Richard M. Ketchum
Big Guns For Washington | April 1955, Vol 6, No 3
By Clay PerryHow tough Henry Knox hauled a train of cannon over wintry trails to help drive the British away from Boston
American Rebels at Sea | Summer 2022, Vol 67, No 3
By Eric Jay DolinAn estimated 1500 privateering ships played a crucial role in winning the American Revolution, but their contributions are often forgotten.
Did Hurricanes Save America? | September 2020, Vol 65, No 5
By Eric Jay DolinThe outcome of the American Revolution may have been affected by catastrophic storms in the deadliest hurricane season in recorded history.
Classic Essays from the Archives
“The Miraculous Care Of Providence” | February/March 1982, Vol 33, No 2
By James Thomas FlexnerGeorge Washington’s Narrow Escapes
Two Intimate Enemies | September 2000, Summer 2025, Vol 51, No 5
By Joseph J. EllisWhen John Adams was elected president, and Thomas Jefferson as vice president, each came to see the other as a traitor. Out of their enmity grew our modern political system.
A Few Parchment Pages Two Hundred Years Later | May/June 1987, Summer 2025, Vol 38, No 4
By Richard B. MorrisThe framers of the Constitution were proud of what they had done but might be astonished that their words still carry so much weight. A distinguished scholar tells us how the great charter has survived and flourished.
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