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What Was Alexander Hamilton's Role in Aaron Burr's Presidential Defeat?
As the presidential election of 1800 approached, Americans were more divided than ever before. The incumbent President John Adams faced off against Vice President Thomas Jefferson, the former secretary of state and author of the Declaration of Independence. To Jefferson and his ...read more
11 Anthems of Black Pride and Protest Through American History
For centuries, Black Americans have used music as a powerful tool. In the antebellum South, enslaved people sang spirituals to covertly plan their escape to freedom. Poems were put to music and performed to celebrate the eradication of slavery, and ballads and hip hop have been ...read more
How the WWII Tehran Conference Tested the Unity of the 'Big Three' Allies
For four days in November-December 1943, as World War II raged, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in secret in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Code named Eureka, the Tehran Conference was the first time all three Allied leaders had ever been face to ...read more
How a New Vaccine Was Developed in Record Time in the 1960s
The invention of the modern mumps vaccine is the stuff of medical textbook legend. In 1963, a star researcher at the pharmaceutical company Merck took a swab of his own daughter’s throat to begin cultivating a weakened form of the mumps virus. And just four years later, in record ...read more
Why Isn't Washington, D.C. a State?
Leading up to the American Revolution, one of the colonists’ chief complaints about the British Empire was that it imposed “taxation without representation”—a slogan that Washington, D.C. has since adopted as its unofficial motto. In 2000, D.C. started printing “Taxation Without ...read more
How Literacy Became a Powerful Weapon in the Fight to End Slavery
On August 21, 1831, enslaved Virginian Nat Turner led a bloody revolt, which changed the course of American history. The uprising in Southampton County led to the killing of an estimated 55 white people, resulting in execution of some 55 black people and the beating of hundreds ...read more
The Secret British Campaign to Persuade the US to Enter WWII
In June of 1941, Americans read about an extraordinary British mission into Nazi-occupied France. Newspapers, including the Baltimore Sun and New York Post, detailed how the British parachuted into an airfield with tommy guns and hand grenades, overpowered the guards and ...read more
Why Buffalo Soldiers Served Among the Nation's First Park Rangers
Among the earliest stewards of the nation’s national parks were soldiers from segregated black regiments. Starting in the 1890s, the Buffalo Soldiers, who had earned valor fighting in the Indian Wars and Spanish-American War, added park ranger to their titles and played a ...read more
FDR, Churchill and Stalin: Inside Their Uneasy WWII Alliance
In desperate times, the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend. During World War II, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union would never have been three-way allies had they not shared a mortal enemy in Adolf Hitler. The Americans were isolationists, the Brits were ...read more
When the Yellow Fever Outbreak of 1793 Sent the Wealthy Fleeing Philadelphia
During the hot, humid summer of 1793, thousands of Philadelphians got horribly sick, suffering from fevers and chills, jaundiced skin, stomach pains and vomit tinged black with blood. By the end of August, as more and more people began dying from this mysterious affliction, ...read more
Why We Have the Third Amendment—and Why It Rarely Comes Up in Court
The First and Second Amendments get a lot of attention, but the Third rarely comes up in court. It reads, in full: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” The ...read more
How the Police Shooting of a Black Soldier Triggered the 1943 Harlem Riots
In 1943, the United States, heavily engaged in the fight against Nazism and fascism in World War II, was also dealing with a serious conflict at home. Black Americans across the country faced segregation, discrimination and economic hardship. Though the struggle for equality was ...read more
As the Allies Closed in on Hitler, They Jockeyed for Future World Dominance
In the final months of World War II, as Nazi Germany began to crumble, capturing Berlin had become the ultimate political and military prize. For the Allies—Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union—this was the chance to take the symbolic seat of Hitler’s expansionist, and ...read more
The Secret World War II Mission to Kidnap Hitler's A-Bomb Scientists
One of the Allies' greatest fears during World War II was that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi forces would unleash so-called Wunderwaffen, or “wonder weapons.” Some of the rumored weapons were outlandish, such as earthquake generators and death rays. But others, like bacterial ...read more
Thomas Jefferson Signed the Insurrection Act in 1807 to Foil a Plot by Aaron Burr
The Insurrection Act gives U.S. presidents the authority to deploy active duty military to maintain or restore peace in times of crisis. The Insurrection Act was invoked numerous times in the 20th century, most famously when Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division ...read more