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Featured Essays

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

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.

In the Age of Discovery, maps held closely guarded secrets for the kings, adventurers, and merchants who first acquired them.

America 250!

Samuel Adams Starts a Revolution | May 2023, Vol 68, No 3

By Stacy Schiff

Enlisting an army of alter egos, Adams used the Boston press to make the case for American independence and to orchestrate a burgeoning rebellion.

sam

Glover and the “Indispensables” Save Washington’s Army | Spring 2024, Vol 69, No 2

By Patrick K. O'Donnell

John 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.

washington delaware

With Little Less Than Savage Fury | Fall 2010, Vol 60, No 3

By Thomas B. Allen

America’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra-violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between "patriots" and loyalists.

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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

American Rebels at Sea | Summer 2022, Vol 67, No 3

By Eric Jay Dolin

An estimated 1500 privateering ships played a crucial role in winning the American Revolution, but their contributions are often forgotten.

privateers

Classic Essays from the Archives

Alice Paul: “I Was Arrested, Of Course…” | February 1974, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3

By Robert S. Gallagher

An interview with the famed suffragette, Alice Paul

alice paul

Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other? | Fall 2008, Summer 2025, Vol 58, No 5

By Annette Gordon-Reed

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

hemings jefferson

Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other? | Fall 2008, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3

By Annette Gordon-Reed

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

hemings jefferson

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