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Featured Essays

A private pilot named Kenneth Arnold kicked off a worldwide craze when he claimed he saw a string of shiny saucers fly past Mount Rainier in 1947.

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.

America 250!

Patriots or Terrorists? | Fall 2008, Vol 58, No 5

By Edwin G. Burrows

The Lost Story of Revolutionary War POW’s

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John Dickinson: Forgotten Founder | Fall 2025, Vol 70, No 4

By Jane E. Calvert

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.

dickinson farmer

America 50, the First Jubilee | , Vol 71, No 3

By Joseph Connor

“And so old Mr. Adams is dead; on the 4th of July, too, just half a century after our Declaration of Independence...”

adams and jefferson

Drama on Dorchester Heights: Washington’s First Victory | Winter 2026, Vol 71, No 1

By Edward J. Larson

The American patriots came up with a bold plan to force the British out of Boston 250 years ago this month.

dorchester heights

Did Hurricanes Save America? | September 2020, Vol 65, No 5

By Eric Jay Dolin

The outcome of the American Revolution may have been affected by catastrophic storms in the deadliest hurricane season in recorded history.

hurricanes america

Classic Essays from the Archives

Growing Up Colored | Summer 2012, Summer 2025, Vol 62, No 2

By Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The noted writer and educator tells of his boyhood in the West Virginia town of Piedmont, where African Americans were second-class citizens, but family pride ran deep.

Henry Louis Gates and family

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

Columbus and Genocide | October 1975, Vol 26, No 6

By Edward T. Stone

The discoverer of the New World was responsible for the annihilation of the peaceful Arawak Indians

columbus

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