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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.

Since her untimely death in 1963, the legendary country music star—and the first female to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame—continues to inspire new audiences and artists.

Classic Essays from Our Archives

A Few Parchment Pages Two Hundred Years Later | May/June 1987, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3

By Richard B. Morris

The framers of the Constitution were proud of what they had done but might be astonished that their words still carry so much weight. A distinguished scholar tells us how the great charter has survived and flourished.

framers

Who Invented Scalping? | April 1977, Vol 28, No 3

By James Axtell

In recent years many voices—both Native-American and white—have questioned whether Indians did in fact invent scalping. What is the evidence?

scalping

Searching for “Shenandoah” | Winter 2022, Summer 2025, Vol 67, No 1

By Bruce Watson

It's one of the oldest folk ballads in our national songbook, but where did it come from? The answer is complex, multi-layered, American.

trapper family

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

Two Intimate Enemies | September 2000, Summer 2025, Vol 70, No 3

By Joseph J. Ellis

When John Adams was elected president, and Thomas Jefferson as vice president, each came to see the other as a traitor. Out of their enmity grew our modern political system.

jefferson adams

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

    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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