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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.

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

Classic Essays from Our Archives

Did Castro Okay the Kennedy Assassination? | Winter 2009, Vol 58, No 6

By Gus Russo

Incriminating new evidence has come to light in KGB files and the authors' interviews of former Cuban intelligence officers which indicates that Fidel Castro probably knew in advance of Oswald's intent to kill JFK.

jfk

The Treasure From The Carpentry Shop | December 1979, Vol 31, No 1

By David McCullough

THE EXTRAORDINARY ORIGINAL DRAWINGS OF THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

bridge drawing

Range Practice | Februrary 1968, Summer 2025, Vol 19, No 2

By Dean Acheson

Our former Secretary of State recalls his service fifty years ago in the Connecticut National Guard—asthmatic horses, a ubiquitous major, and a memorable shooting practice.

horse-drawn artillery

“Perdicaris Alive or Raisuli Dead” | August 1959, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3

By Barbara W. Tuchman

John Hay’s ringing phrase helped nominate T. R., but it covered an embarrassing secret that remained concealed for thirty years.

perdicaris incident

The Conversion of Harry Truman | November 1991, Vol 42, No 7

By William E. Leuchtenburg

A 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.

truman civil rights

The Day The Civil War Ended | June/July 1978, Vol 29, No 4

By Bruce Catton

At the Gettysburg reunion fifty years after the battle, it was no longer blue and gray. Now it was all gray.

civil war reunion

    Today in History

  • First Nixon-Kennedy debate

    Chicago hosts the first televised presidential debate between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon.

  • Battle of the Meuse-Argonne begins

    The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the final Allied offensive of World War I, begins in the Argonne Forest in northern France. It would become the bloodiest battle in American history.

    More »

  • George Gershwin born

    American composer and pianist George Gershwin is born as Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, New York.

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