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Featured Essays

While Robert Morris is remembered as the "financier of the Revolution," his partner and former boss, Thomas Willing, has been lost to history despite his own contributions to early American business and finance. 

Decades before the Ayatollah, even before the shah, early Americans found themselves enchanted with Iranian culture, politics, and history.

By organizing weekly gatherings of political leaders and citizens, she proved democracy works best when rivals see one another as human beings.

William Seward's 1868 attempt to acquire the Danish territory was the country's first, but not the last. 

America 250!

America 100: The Great Centennial Fair | , Vol 71, No 3

By Fergus M. Bordewich

The extravaganza celebrating the nation’s first century was the greatest cultural event of America’s Gilded Age.

centennial fair

“Shall We Have a King?” | Fall 2025, Vol 70, No 4

By William E. Leuchtenburg

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

constitutional convention

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

“The Die is Now Cast” | November/December 2024, Vol 69, No 5

By Joseph J. Ellis

American resistance to British authority developed with stunning speed 250 years ago in response to George III’s inflexibility. 

john lamb

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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Classic Essays from the Archives

“The Tide is Setting Strongly Against Us” | Winter 2010, Vol 59, No 4

By Edward L. Ayers

Lincoln’s bid for reelection in 1864 faced serious challenges from a popular opponent and a nation weary of war.

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“Medic!” | November 1997, Vol 48, No 7

By Stephen E. Ambrose

In a hard war, theirs may have been the hardest job of all. Along with Army doctors and nurses, they worked something very close to a miracle in the European theater.

medic

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.

mum bett

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