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Fighting to defeat the Confederacy, the first African American regiments also helped win for themselves the full rights and privileges of U.S. citizens.   Read >>
A longtime expert on blues music recounts what it was like to work with one of America's greatest musicians. Read >>
The long, embattled history of women’s suffrage that began with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention continues to this day. Read >>
FDR's Secretary of Labor — the first female Cabinet member — also helped create the minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, and the first tough child labor laws. Read >>
A century and a half after his death, the Native American leader's vision of finding peace and prosperity in a divided country is more compelling than ever. Read >>
An exhibit now touring the U.S. highlights the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, with a focus on the violence and brutality endured by its participants.  Read >>
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s evolving relationship with African Americans challenged her beliefs about herself and the world she had been raised in.   Read >>
What African Americans could not achieve in the courtroom they did in the dance hall, with the invention of a rebellious, and wholly American, new musical artform.  Read >>
Jan Scruggs fought on multiple fronts to build the Vietnam Memorial, which was once derided as a “black gash” and “Orwellian glop.” His work inspired a nation and helped bring Americans together. Read >>
A critical but forgotten part of the Civil Rights era was the campaign to undo the white supremacist constitutions in many states.
Jan Scruggs had the idea to create a memorial to honor 12 friends he lost in Vietnam, along with the other 58,320 men and women who gave their lives. A petition has been started to ask President Biden to award the Presidential Medal to Scruggs. Read >>
In an annual ritual, Naval Academy plebes must work together to climb a greased obelisk that honors the captain of the SS Central America. Read >>
Dubbed the “AAA guide for black people,” the underground travel manual encapsulated how automobile travel expanded — and limited — African American lives under Jim Crow. Read >>
Vladka Meed joined the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, eventually escaped, and helped hundreds of children survive Nazi roundups.  Read >>
The recent discovery of the hull of the battleship Nevada recalls her dramatic action at Pearl Harbor and ultimate revenge on D-Day as the first ship to fire on the Nazis. Read >>
The “divine wind” began in October 1944 as the Japanese defended against MacArthur’s assault on the Philippines. The Americans who witnessed these first attacks were horrified and shaken, but it was only the beginning. Read >>
J.D. Salinger carried a draft of his subsequently classic novel with him when he landed on the beach at Normandy. Read >>
Our first president spoke about abolishing slavery, but couldn’t manage without the unpaid labor of hundreds of people at Mount Vernon. Read >>
For 33 years, "Mr. Rogers" taught television audiences about civility, tolerance, and love. Read >>
Hotel Pennsylvania in Midtown Manhattan has been slated for destruction for the past 20 years which leaves New York City preservations with little hope as the powers capable of saving the iconic structure stand idle. Are they right to let it go? Read >>
After 50 years in broadcast journalism, Leslie Stahl believes that her record of unbiased reporting speaks for itself. Nonetheless, the growing skepticism toward journalists has been decades in the making and goes deeper than former President Donald Trump's rise to power. Read >>
After we published the Papers at the Washington Post, the Supreme Court decision in our favor has underpinned American freedom of the press. Read >>
The New York Times reporter who spent months in hiding analyzing the Pentagon Papers remembers how they broke the story. Read >>
As a young reporter for the Boston Globe, I stumbled onto the existence of The Pentagon Papers. Read >>
No figure in the Revolutionary era inspired as much affection and reverence as Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette Read >>
With U-boats sinking dozens of ships each month, Hemingway, Bogart, and other citizens tried to help patrol American waters. Read >>
On that fateful flight, American heroes and the accidents of history combined to save the US Capitol from likely total destruction. Read >>
No war, no national crisis, has left a greater impress on the American psyche than the successive waves of new arrivals that quite literally built the country.
The Kennedys, despite their many successes, always remembered the discrimination against Irish immigrants.

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