Seventy-five years ago, the Allied powers in World War II decided to take the fight against Adolf Hitler directly to France. Planned for more than two years, the D-Day offensive was a full-scale invasion designed to push the Nazis back into Germany. No amphibious mission of its ...read more

1. The Last Slave Ship Survivor Gave an Interview in the 1930s. It Just Surfaced Zora Neale Hurston's searing book about the final survivor of the transatlantic slave trade, Cudjo Lewis, could not find a publisher for nearly 90 years. READ MORE 2. Early Humans ...read more

Communism as an ideology arose in the wake of the first Industrial Revolution when overworked, underpaid workers felt exploited and sought better representation in government. The Communist Manifesto, as laid out by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, called for a classless society ...read more

January 1969 Richard Nixon is inaugurated as the 37 President of the United States. February 1971 Richard Nixon orders the installation of a secret taping system that records all conversations in the Oval Office, his Executive Office Building office, and his Camp David office and ...read more

Sure, Rex Tillerson’s 13-and-a-half-month tenure as Secretary of State was kind of short. But he’s not the first top White House official to be kicked out early, especially in Donald Trump’s administration, which lost National Security Advisor Michael Flynn within the first ...read more

Join a special History Facebook Live panel discussion about racism and history hosted by the King Center in Atlanta. The event will be broadcast on Monday Jan. 15, from 6 to 8:30 p.m. ET. This discussion will bring together a wide range of voices for a frank conversation about ...read more

As 2017 slips into the history books, take a look back at the year in culture—with the best new releases that drew from the past. Whatever medium your personal passion might be, these movies, books, TV shows and podcasts proved that what’s old can be new again. Film Directors ...read more

In a year filled with dramatic global events and unexpected twists, it could be difficult to keep up with the news. To help make sense of the year that was, discover the history behind the stories that shaped 2017. North Korea Grows Its Nuclear Ambitions 2017: The United States ...read more

Are Americans optimistic about the future? A recent HISTORY survey suggests they are, though that optimism comes with some caveats. The survey of 535 adults found that four-fifths of them were hopeful about what would happen to themselves and their families in 2018. Most were ...read more

You may remember the soothsayer’s warning to Julius Caesar to “Beware the ides of March,” but the term didn’t originate with William Shakespeare. The earliest Roman calendar, which consisted of ten months beginning with Martius (March), was believed to have been created by King ...read more

It might seem like an obvious piece of any numerical system, but the zero is a surprisingly recent development in human history. In fact, this ubiquitous symbol for “nothing” didn’t even find its way to Europe until as late as the 12th century. Zero’s origins most likely date ...read more

The sport we in the United States know as football is more properly called gridiron football, for the vertical yard lines that mark the field. Closely related to two English sports—rugby and soccer (or association football)—gridiron football originated at universities in North ...read more

For centuries, archaeologists and other scholars have been trying to unravel the mystery behind the hundreds of bodies—the oldest dating back some 10,000 years—found buried in the wetlands of Northern Europe. Due to lack of oxygen and the anti-microbial properties of peat moss, ...read more

Although it’s one of the world’s most famous monuments, the prehistoric stone circle known as Stonehenge remains shrouded in mystery. Built on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, Stonehenge was constructed in several stages between 3000 and 1500 B.C., spanning the Neolithic ...read more

You may have heard that a young man named Abner Doubleday invented the game known as baseball in Cooperstown, New York, during the summer of 1839. Doubleday then went on to become a Civil War hero, while baseball became America’s beloved national pastime.  Not only is that story ...read more

The mystery began on August 18, 1227, when Mongol leader Genghis Khan died of unknown causes while leading a military campaign in China. According to legend, Khan’s successors killed anyone who witnessed his funeral procession on its way back to the Mongol capital of Karakorum. ...read more

For several centuries, people have debated whether human beings can spontaneously combust, or burst into flames without being ignited by an external source. Though the first known accounts of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) date all the way back to 1641, the phenomenon gained ...read more

Soon after rescuers reached surviving members of the Donner Party on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada in February 1847, the public was bombarded with grisly details about how the snowbound pioneers had resorted to cannibalism when their food supply ran out. Thanks to ...read more

At the age of 31, Jackie Kennedy captivated the nation with her youth and beauty when her husband was elected president in 1960. But it might surprise you to learn that she is only the third-youngest first lady in American history. Who’s the youngest presidential wife ever? That ...read more

Though you can see the Area 51 complex’s buildings in satellite images, it doesn’t appear on any public U.S. government maps. For decades, conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists have speculated that the government uses the secret Nevada site to experiment with extraterrestrials and ...read more

Hollywood portrays Roman gladiatorial contests as brutal, unruly duels that ended when one of the combatants killed the other. But in reality, gladiators didn’t always fight to the death. These ancient Roman athletes were highly trained professionals who made their living ...read more

If you’re wondering where the dollar sign ($) came from, you’re in good company. No one really knows for sure, and several theories have emerged over the years. The most widely accepted explanation, according to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, goes back to the Spanish peso, ...read more

In July of 64 A.D., a great fire ravaged Rome for six days, destroying 70 percent of the city and leaving half its population homeless. According to a well-known expression, Rome’s emperor at the time, the decadent and unpopular Nero, “fiddled while Rome burned.” The expression ...read more