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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.
Editor's Note: Brent Glass is Director Emeritus of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and the author of 50 Great American Places: Essential Historic Sites Across the U.S., from which this essay is adapted. Read more >>
Now a popular state park, the unassuming geological feature along the Illinois River has served as the site of centuries of human habitation and discovery.
Editor's Note: Mark Walczynski is a retired professor at Illinois Valley Community College and the current Park Historian for the Starved Rock Foundation, located at Starved Rock State Park in Utica, Illinois. Read more >>
The city embodies the American spirit: freedom, democracy, innovation, arts, and a love of knowledge.
Whether you’re a serious historian or you just enjoy learning about the past, Philadelphia has a lot to offer. Read more >>
Members of the Maryland Forces guard memories of a dramatic history at Fort Frederick, the best preserved fort from the former English colonies in America.
As I drove through the Maryland woods to old Fort Freder Read more >>
American Heritage interviews Lowell Thomas, the journalist whom Damon Runyon described as “the beau ideal of the radio fraternity, first for his complete artistry and second for his personality.
As the lights of London’s Covent Garden dimmed that early August evening in 1919, few people, including the young narrator waiting nervously in the wings, sensed the historic nature of the occasion. Read more >>