When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and George Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.
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When rebellion broke out in the American colonies, British royals—including King George III and Lord Frederick North—moved quickly. Their actions would change the course of history.
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While the Underground Railroad helped enslaved black people escape north, another version ran in reverse, sending free men, women, and children back into bondage.
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Following Washington's death in 1799, cultural and intellectual agents in early America began to transform the first president into a national symbol through books, poems, and artwork.
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After his father's death in 1848, Charles Francis Adams, Sr. became the last great hope of America's first—and, at the time, only—political dynasty.
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The British are often cast as the tyrannical power in the Revolutionary War. But American patriots could also be ruthless in demanding fealty to their cause, as many Quaker families learned while attempting to remain neutral.
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At the end of the War for Independence, Philadelphia nationalists, together with disgruntled officers in the Continental Army at Newburgh, began a plot to challenge congress' authority. But can we really call it a conspiracy?
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Denigrated as "crude," "illiterate," "self-centered," and "slovenly," Mary Washington had the singular destiny to have a son whose potential for being idealized seems to have been even greater than that for motherhood.
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The ex-slave and investigative journalist spent a lifetime fighting against lynching and segregation — but also for voting rights for African-American women.
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Research by American Heritage reveals that the Royal Navy had 24 warships sunk or heavily damaged in October 1780, which must have affected Britain's ability to fight in the months before the surrender at Yorktown.
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Fifty years ago this month, Loretta Lynn released a song inspired by her childhood in Butcher Holler, Kentucky. Now she is the undisputed “Queen of Country Music."
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Abraham Lincoln learned much of what made him a great president — honesty, sincerity, toughness, and humility — from his early reading and from studying the lives of Washington and Franklin.
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The newly renovated replica of the historic ship was expected to make a celebratory journey home this summer, but COVID-19 made that impossible.
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In five appointments to the Supreme Court, Eisenhower added conservatives, moderates, and a liberal, believing the president and courts should represent all the American people.
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Recently declassified documents reveal that Alexander Haig and other White House staff actively worked to remove Richard Nixon — the president they worked for — from office.
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"The four years we spent together are still one of my most treasured memories.”
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