During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, large numbers of people from northern and western Europe traveled in overcrowded ships to immigrate to the United States. They arrived to escape famine and religious discrimination, to buy farmland and cash in on the ...read more
It’s one of the United States’ best-known rights: automatic citizenship to all born within its borders. But birthright citizenship hasn’t always been the rule of the land in the U.S., and the legal concept has faced plenty of challenges over the century. Here’s the story of ...read more
Before Texas was a U.S. state, it was its own independent nation where both Mexicans and white immigrants were citizens. But during the nine years that the Republic of Texas existed, Mexicans became outsiders as white settlers made it more difficult for them to vote and hold ...read more
On October 7, 1885, Friedrich Trump, a 16-year-old German barber, bought a one-way ticket for America, escaping three years of compulsory German military service. He had been a sickly child, unsuited to hard labor, and feared the effects of the draft. It might have been illegal, ...read more
Desperate to escape Nazi persecution during World War II, Anne Frank’s family tried repeatedly to flee to the United States before going into hiding in 1942, according to new researchpublished this week. However, the combination of Nazi rule, World War II bombing and American ...read more
The founding fathers set a high standard of ideals for the new nation to live up to back in 1776. But from the very beginning, debate about the best way to do that has been an inherent part of the American experiment. Since its founding, the United States has had both high and ...read more
More than 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1954—with a whopping 1,004,756 entering the United States in 1907 alone. And yet, even during these days of peak immigration, for most passengers hoping to establish new lives in the United States, the ...read more
Tweets and accusations of “fake news” may be issued from the White House today, but in April 1917, the U.S. government created a whole committee to influence media and shape popular opinion. When the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson ...read more
In a recent interview, White House chief of staff John Kelly told NPR that undocumented immigrants are “not people that would easily assimilate into the United States, into our modern society.” And he listed a few reasons why: “They’re overwhelmingly rural people,” he said. “In ...read more
The border between the United States and Mexico stretches for nearly 2,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and touches the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. The Rio Grande runs along 1,254 miles of the border, but west of El Paso, Texas, the ...read more
Donald Trump’s decision to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border is only the latest in a long history of U.S. militarization of its national boundaries. In fact, America’s southern border—which has shifted multiple times with U.S. expansion—was arguably formed ...read more
In March 2018, the Commerce Department controversially announced that it would include a question on citizenship in the 2020 census—the first such question since 1950, and one that at least 12 states say they would sue over. The census, a Constitutionally-mandated survey of the ...read more
July is scorching in Mexicali. The Mexican city just across the border from Calexico, California, averages 108 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, but temperatures often swell into the 120s. In 1955, thousands of disoriented people roamed the city’s streets as the sun bore down on ...read more
History Reads is a weekly series featuring work from Team History, a group of experts and influencers, exploring history’s most fascinating questions. Debates over immigration policy have assumed center stage in Washington and have even contributed to a government shutdown. ...read more
The Past in Colorfeatures the work of colorist Marina Amaral, bringing to life black and white photos with color applied digitally. The German barber, restaurant-owner and property speculator Friedrich Trump and his young wife Elisabeth did not intend to spend their married life ...read more
New York’s longest-serving police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, is an Irish-American. So is the department’s current commissioner, James O’Neill. Municipal police departments across the country celebrate the role of Irish-American cops with Emerald Societies—and there’s historic ...read more
The March of Women In March, 1913, more than five thousand women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue demanding the right to vote. Accompanied by 20 parade floats and nine bands, the marchers, who came from all walks of life, were united in one purpose: to “march in a spirit of ...read more
From the inauguration of Donald Trump to the first total solar eclipse to traverse the Lower 48 in nearly a century, 2017 was a year for the history books. Here we review the biggest news in politics, culture and science this year. Politics Trump’s inauguration: After a ...read more
One year after Donald Trump’s upset election victory, it’s not unusual to hear people wonder out loud if the United States is really one country anymore. Last month, the Republican senator from Arizona, Jeff Flake, gave a speech on the Senate floor about the “state of our ...read more
Every year, up to 50,000 people around the world are selected for the United States’ “diversity” visa lottery, out of around 14 million applicants. Yet despite its name, the lottery wasn’t originally intended to promote cultural and racial diversity in the U.S. Back when Congress ...read more
A mob of tens of thousands of angry men surrounded a New Orleans jail, shouting angry slurs and calling for blood. By the time they were done, 11 men would be dead—shot and mutilated in an act of brutal mob violence that took place in front of a cheering crowd. It was 1891, and ...read more
In his chilling new book, Hitler in Los Angeles: How Jews Foiled Nazi Plots Against Hollywood and America, scholar Steve Ross chronicles how Hitler and American Nazis planned to take over the United States, using Los Angeles as their stronghold. Their plot included ...read more
When Joseph Haas landed on Ellis Island, he was overwhelmed. The undernourished 14-year-old had been on a boat from Germany for weeks. He was alone. As he entered the Great Hall, he heard a cacophony of languages. The day was a blur—but almost 70 years later, he still remembered ...read more
Until the late 19th century, there wasn’t any such thing as “illegal” or “legal” immigration to the United States. That’s because before you can immigrate somewhere illegally, there has to be a law for you to break. American immigration didn’t really begin until the late 1700s, ...read more