Historians/History

The Story You Haven’t Heard About America’s Response to the Holocaust

by Rafael Medoff

US government officials, defying FDR, helped save 200,000 Jews.

50 Years Ago Harrison Salisbury Told the American People What Was Really Going on in North Vietnam

by Joe Renouard

The government said he was wrong. History proves he got the big story right.

3 of the 4 Great Black Leaders Between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement Are Well-Known. But the 4th?

by Burnis R. Morris

His name is Carter G. Woodson. It’s about time we got to know him.

The BDS Movement Has Come to Kansas

by Edwin Black

It's split the Mennonites and ended in a lawsuit protesting a Kansas law that bans discrimination against Israel.

There Are More Imaginative Ways to Deal with Confederate Statues than Tearing Them Down

by Roy E. Finkenbine

Here are two examples.

2 Myths Involving Canada that Every American Should Know

by John U. Bacon

One has to do with the biggest explosion before the atomic bomb.

Key West Should Be Known for This, too

by Arlo Haskell

It was for a time the refuge of Jews and Cubans including José Martí fleeing oppression.

Does the Movie “Marshall” Give Us a False Langston Hughes?

by Randal Maurice Jelks

Langston is and Langston ain’t: Thinking about sexuality, black history and the movies.

The Thanksgiving When Citizens Ran U.S. Foreign Policy

by William Lambers

Say what? Read on.

The Year We Celebrated Thanksgiving Two Weeks in a Row

by Suzy Evans

The year was 1939.

Why Don’t We Celebrate Conscientious Objectors?

by Jeremy Kuzmarov and Roger Peace

Well, now one war museum has.

Old Lions Department: Historian Bernard Weisberger at Age 95

by Erik Moshe

What’s he doing now? Writing a memoir, teaching himself Spanish, and vowing to read (at long last) Henry Adams’s “History of the Administrations of Jefferson and Madison.”

Forty Years Ago President Sadat Visited Israel

by Yoav J. Tenembaum

Yes, it was as big an event as we all thought.

Old Lions Department: Historian Vaughn Bornet, at 100 Years Old

by Erik Moshe

He’s still writing.

The Next Battle Over Monuments? It Will Be Those for the Founding Fathers.

by Philip Jenkins

If you were a slave during the Revolution who would you have been rooting for? The British.

Why Do People Care So Much About Jewelry?

by Wendy Doniger

One clue: We tell a lot of stories about jewelry and the assumptions behind most of them are sexist.

What Happens to Old Military Weapons We No Longer Need?

by Christopher Bright

Some get repurposed as civilian cultural artifacts, like this.

What I’m Reading: An Interview with Gregory A. Freeman

by Erik Moshe

“I didn’t [set out to write history]. It chose me. I set out to be in advertising, then fell into journalism, and then began to specialize in writing history.”

The Troubled Genius of Robert Lowell

by Robin Lindley

An interview with clinical psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison on her groundbreaking study of art and illness.

The Spanish Flu Killed More Than 50 Million People, but We’re Only Now Beginning to Recognize How Devastating It Was

by Laura Spinney

This is why that is.