Current Events that Relate to History
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RetrievalThe ‘Dirty and Nasty People’ Who Became Americans
How 13 colonies came together.The Atlantic -
RetrievalThe Biggest Coverup of the American Revolution
The Declaration of Independence condemns King George III. But the British were not to blame for one of the war’s most infamous conflagrations.The Bulwark -
ArgumentDon’t Call it ‘Alligator Alcatraz.’ Call it a Concentration Camp.
This facility’s purpose fits the classic model, and its existence points to serious dangers ahead for the country.MSNBC -
LongreadDoes America Have a Founding Philosophy?
It depends on how you read the Declaration’s “self-evident” truths.Modern Age -
AntecedentThe 19th-Century Precursors to the Crises of Trump’s America
Revisiting history shows that violence and constitutional disputes are nothing new in US politics.New Lines -
RetrievalGimme Boer
The recent resettlement of a few dozen Afrikaner “refugees” points to a longer history of U.S. fascination with these Dutch-descended white South Africans.The Baffler -
exhibit“Natural” Disasters
A collection of stories about previous generations’ ways of dealing with meteorological calamity and its aftermath..
From the HNN Archive
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How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying
The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. -
So Ductile Is History in the Hands of Man!
The past and present of counterfactual history, from antiquity to the Napoleonic Wars to a few very active subreddits. -
Indifferent to the Fate of Freedom Elsewhere
Jimmy Carter is known for his defense of human rights worldwide. But in 1979, he threatened to deport thousands of Iranian student protesters. -
An Attempt to Defeat Constitutional Order
After the Civil War, conservatives used terrorism, cold-blooded murder, and economic coercion to fight the new state constitution in South Carolina. -
Whose Side Are College Administrators On?
There’s a long history of politicians targeting student protesters — and of campus leaders abetting those efforts. -
Solve for AI
What the history of the pocket calculator reveals about the future of AI in classrooms. -
“At Any Future Time”
In 1880, the daughter of a Welsh politician turned to fiction to expose perspectives missing from the official record, upending histories for generations to come. -
Letting the World Scream
In 1984, the U.S. rejected the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction, revealing its tendency to ignore international rules it sees as unfavorable — even when it helped write them. -
Scared Out of the Community
Between 1929 and 1939 approximately half a million Mexicans left the United States. Many of the departing families included American-born children to whom Mexico, not the United States, was the foreign land. -
When Good Housekeeping Meant Getting Vaccinated Against Polio
The pages of 1950s lifestyle magazines offer a glimpse of a time when childhood vaccines were anything but controversial.