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March 2023
1min read


Returning home

from World War II, the GIs of Athens, Tennessee, found that the democracy they had fought for abroad was noticeably absent from their own town. They determined to defeat their corrupt local officials at the ballot box; the officials determined to ensure that this could not possibly happen; and the result was a surprisingly violent confrontation that seemed, in its way, as much a test of freedom as had been the war overseas.

Fine American antiques

were hardly appreciated in 1905 when a Lithuanian immigrant named Israel Sack opened his first shop; today they fill museums and are a very big business—and Sack’s firm, now run by his sons, remains at the top. Rebecca Martin traces the intertwined growth of Israel Sack, Inc., and the transformed field that it leads.

Shortly before D-day

a routine training exercise by Allied invasion forces in the English Channel became a major military disaster, one that cost some seven hundred and fifty lives—far more than we lost at the Utah Beach landing for which the forces had been preparing. The catastrophe was immediately shrouded in secrecy, which lasted for years. Here, the whole grim story is told for the first time.

Plus…

Former United Auto Workers chief Douglas Fräser, in an interview, examines the fortunes and misfortunes of organized labor…Coley Taylor recalls his childhood years, when one of his neighbors was an old man named Samuel Clemens … Robert Uhl introduces an engrossing portfolio of marine paintings … We present a new feature, a column on American business by Peter Baida… and much, much more.

We hope you enjoy our work.

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Stories published from "December 1984"

Authored by: David Shi

At the turn of the century, a crusading magazine editor exhorted women to seek peace of mind and body through simplicity. For a generation, they listened.

Authored by: Kenneth Finkel

For sixty-five years this photographic company has been recording America from overhead

Authored by: Richard H. Hopper

When did we start saying it? And why?

Authored by: Q. David Bowers

Solid-gold coins were legal tender for most of the nation's history. In their brilliant surfaces we can see our past fortunes.

Authored by: Edward Sorel

He was more than just a cartoonist. He was the Hogarth of the American middle class.

Authored by: The Editors

… 1885 that is, month by month

Authored by: Charles C. Hemming

All this Florida boy wanted to do was rejoin his regiment. Instead they drafted him into the Confederate secret service.

Authored by: Jerome Tarshis

California has always been as much a state of mind as a geographical entity. For the better part of two centuries, artists have been defining its splendid promise.

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In his Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln embodied leading in a time of polarization, political disagreement, and differing understandings of reality.

Native American peoples and the lands they possessed loomed large for Washington, from his first trips westward as a surveyor to his years as President.

A hundred years ago, America was rocked by riots, repression, and racial violence.

During Pres. Washington’s first term, an epidemic killed one tenth of all the inhabitants of Philadelphia, then the capital of the young United States.

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.  

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.

Our research reveals that 19 artworks in the U.S. Capitol honor men who were Confederate officers or officials. What many of them said, and did, is truly despicable.

Here is probably the most wide-ranging look at Presidential misbehavior ever published in a magazine.

When Germany unleashed its blitzkreig in 1939, the U.S. Army was only the 17th largest in the world. FDR and Marshall had to build a fighting force able to take on the Nazis, against the wishes of many in Congress.