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November 2025

President Johnson was able to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the help of Senators Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and  Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL), who helped write the legislation.
President Johnson was able to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the support of Senators Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) and Minority Leader Everett Dirksen (R-IL), who helped write the legislation. 

Original Lincoln penny, 1909, now worth about $60,000 (EBay)
An original 1909 Lincoln penny in good condition is now worth as much as $1,200. EBay

Editor's Note: Matthew Pinsker is a professor of history at Dickinson College and the author of Boss Lincoln: The Partisan Life of Abraham Lincoln. He writes a popular blog, What Would Lincoln Do?.

The US Mint recently stopped production on the Lincoln penny, marking the end of an era — or at least the beginning of the end, since pennies will still circulate. 

The federal government has been making one cent coins since 1793 and Lincoln’s face has been on the penny since 1909, a commemoration designed to celebrate the centennial of his birth.

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American Heritage has published an extraordinary archive of writing since its first issue in 1949.

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Since 1949 our mission has been simple: “To develop a deeper understanding of the American heritage.” We are read by millions around the world, and our articles often assigned in classrooms because our writing is accurate and trusted.

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By  DARLENE SUPERVILLE
 

Stewart McLaurin knew it was coming.

An entire wing of the White House, a building he calls “the most special, important building on the planet,” was going to be replaced to make way for a ballroom that President Donald Trump wants to add to the building.

But when McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, saw the first images of backhoes tearing into the East Wing, it still came as a bit of a shock.

“When the reality of things happen, they strike us a little bit differently than the theory of things happening, so it was a bit of a jarring moment,” McLaurin told The Associated Press.

McLaurin, who has led the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for more than a decade, did not take a position on the changes. It’s not his job. “Ours is not to make happen, or to keep from happening — but to document what does happen, what happens in this great home that we call the White House,” he said.

Roosevelt in 1904
Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. Library of Congress

Editor’s Note: Bret Baier is the Chief Political Anchor for Fox News and the author of six New York Times bestsellers, including To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment. His most recent book, To Rescue the American Spirit: Teddy Roosevelt and the Birth of a Superpower, was called a “wonderfully readable biography, by Walter Isaacson. Portions of this essay appeared in that book.

Winston Churchill had genius as a leader, statesman, orator, and writer, but as Henry Grunwald writes in this extraordinary book, "one of his greatest talents was being a man - a man both legendary and loved, admirable and amusing, larger than life and closer to Earth than most great figures."

Here, John D. Eisenhower, Pamela C. Harriman, John Lukacs, Kenneth McArdle, William Manchester, and A. L. Rowse bring Churchill vividly to life, assessing his place in history and exploring his relationships with world leaders and family alike.

"Remarkably well balanced and sound . . . "
- The New Republic

Here, from award-winning historian Henry Bamford Parkes and the editors of American Heritage, is the dramatic story of Mexico - from the Aztecs, Maya, and other ancient peoples who gave birth to a vast civilization to the Spanish Conquest, the Mexican-American War, the Mexican Revolution, and Mexico's role in World War II. Historian Parkes brings vividly to life the legendary figures Montezuma, Cortés, Santa Anna, Juárez, Maximilian, Díaz, Pancho Villa, and Zapata.

There is only one New York. It didn't make America, but it made possible the America we've come to know. Here - from American Heritage magazine and such historians as Nathaniel Benchley, David McCullough, and William V. Shannon - is its remarkable story: from Henry Hudson's historic voyage and the sale of Manhattan Island to New York's occupation by British forces during the Revolution and the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, and the Whitney Museum.

No one has ever told America's story with more grace, clarity, and emotional power than Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton. In his books, ranging from the celebrated Civil War trilogies to the account of his boyhood in back-country Michigan, Catton brought the people of the past to such vivid life that he became the nation's best-loved and most widely read historian.

Bruce Catton's friend and associate for many years, Oliver Jensen, has assembled this volume of selections of Catton's works - as a memorial to the man and a tribute to the historian. The excerpts chosen for Bruce Catton's America include portions of A Stillness at Appomattox, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; The American Heritage History of the Civil War, awarded a special Pulitzer Prize Citation; and representative selections from many other books and articles. The book also includes several previously unpublished pieces.

No one has ever told America's story with more grace, clarity, and emotional power than Pulitzer Prize winner Bruce Catton. In his books, ranging from the celebrated Civil War trilogies to the account of his boyhood in back-country Michigan, Catton brought the people of the past to such vivid life that he became the nation's best-loved and most widely read historian.

Bruce Catton's friend and associate for many years, Oliver Jensen, has assembled this volume of selections of Catton's works - as a memorial to the man and a tribute to the historian. The excerpts chosen for Bruce Catton's America include portions of A Stillness at Appomattox, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; The American Heritage History of the Civil War, awarded a special Pulitzer Prize Citation; and representative selections from many other books and articles. The book also includes several previously unpublished pieces.

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