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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!
Drama at the Old North Bridge | Spring 2025, Vol 70, No 2
By Rick Atkinson“Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end,” said one minuteman after the fight.
“Boston Harbor a Tea-pot This Night!” | Spring 2024, Vol 69, No 2
By Benjamin CarpThe dumping of tons of tea in protest set the stage for the American Revolution and was a window on the culture and attitudes of the time.
The Turning Point in the Revolutionary War | October 1997, Vol 48, No 6
By Richard M. Ketchum
With Little Less Than Savage Fury | Fall 2010, Vol 60, No 3
By Thomas B. AllenAmerica’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra-violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between "patriots" and loyalists.
Discovered: First Maps of the American Revolution | Spring 2025, Vol 70, No 2
By Edwin S. GrosvenorPreviously unknown, a map drawn by Lord Percy, the British commander at Lexington, sheds new light on the perilous retreat to Boston 250 years ago this month.
Classic Essays from the Archives
Finding the Real Jamestown | Winter 2008, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3
By William M. KelsoThe archaeologist who discovered the real Jamestown debunks myths, and answers age-old mysteries about North America's first successful English colony.
Growing Up Colored | Summer 2012, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3
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.
FDR and His Women | March 2003, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3
By Ellen FeldmanA novelist who has just spent several years studying Eleanor Roosevelt, Lucy Rutherfurd, and Missy LeHand tells a moving story of love: public and private, given and withheld.
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