Roundup

The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"

by Joseph Stromberg

100 years ago, if you were a pedestrian, crossing the street was simple: you walked across it.

When Lincoln's State of the Union Leaked

by Burt Solomon

Someone close to Lincoln gave excerpts to the press, and the new president scrambled to avoid a very public humiliation.

It’s not just “Selma”: Hollywood’s history problem

by Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg

Again and again, from "John Adams" to "Lincoln," romantic truthiness supplants historical truth on-screen

A 1965 failure that still haunts America

by Julian Zelizer

When racial conflict flared in Ferguson, Missouri, this summer it brought back terrible memories of what happened nearly 50 years ago, in the summer of 1965.

Terror in Paris - An Analysis

by Lawrence Davidson

Is there a way out of this vicious cycle - one that might also uphold a broad and truly universal standard for freedom of speech?

In Defense of Europe's So-called Far Right

by Daniel Pipes

Rather than engage in name-calling and attempts at exclusion, established institutions should encourage the populist parties to moderate, become more sophisticated, and fully participate in the political process.

The Power of Congress

by Sam Tanenhaus

Before L.B.J., progressives saw bipartisanship as a blight. What happened?

The Hunting of Billie Holiday

by Johann Hari

How Lady Day found herself in the middle of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ early fight for survival.

‘False Flags,’ Charlie Hebdo, and Martin Luther King

by Philip Jenkins

Knowing who carried out an act of terror doesn't always tell us who was ultimately behind it.

No, Obama Is Not Black Jesus

by Harvey J. Kaye

What one thing should historians have told Obama he needed to know when he met with them at the outset of his presidency? 

'Selma' Backlash Misses The Point

by Joseph Peniel

The critiques are part of a larger debate about who owns American history, especially the portions of that history that were led, organized and shaped in large part by African-Americans.

Not Just a Movie

by Maureen Dowd

Artful falsehood is more dangerous than artless falsehood, because fewer people see through it.

Who Regrets Slavery? Not Steve Scalise

by Martin Longman

The third-ranking member of the House Republican leadership didn’t just attend a neo-Nazi conference in 2002, he also led opposition to a 1996 resolution in the state House that expressed mere “regret” for the institution of slavery.

10 Things You Should Know About Selma Before You See the Film

by Emilye Crosby

There is a "people's history" of Selma that we all can learn from—one that is needed especially now.

What Happened in Selma?

by Alan Singer

As a result of the focus on King, two of the civil rights movement's more powerful vignettes, both covered in the documentary Eyes on the Prize, are left out of the movie.

Roundup Top 10!

This week's broad sampling of opinion pieces found on the Internet, as selected by the editors of HNN.

Charlie Hebdo’s Anti-Imperialist Roots

by Daniel Foliard

The 1881 laws on the freedom of the press had opened the golden age of French political caricature, paving the way for Samuel-Sigismond Schwarz to found L’Assiette au Beurre in 1901.

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion Since 1945

The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted.

State of Mind: A Future Russia

by Walter Laqueur

How do Russians envisage their country’s place in the world fifteen or twenty years from now?

The official history of Hirohito — decades in the making — is deeply flawed

by Herbert P. Bix

It sanitizes his weak leadership during World War II.