Fewer than half of Americans report knowing someone who is Muslim. Here we explain Islam, its diversity and its long history in the United States.
The founders believed education was crucial to democracy. Here, a one-room schoolhouse in Breathitt County, Ky.
Photograph by Marion Post Wolcott/Library of Congress
Democracies degenerate because of cunning leaders. Democracies also crumble because of the people themselves – and the US founders believed education would be crucial to maintaining democracy.
Fireworks shows commonly celebrate the nation’s birthday.
Pete Saloutos via Getty Images
A scholar of early US history celebrates the country’s birthday with six under-appreciated ideas about the founding document.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, standing at center and facing left just above the eagle, takes the presidential oath of office for the third time in 1941.
FDR Presidential Library and Museum via Flickr
A president’s persona is always a public act. In that way, Trump’s shtick – vulgar man of the people – was not exceptional. And every president has had to invent his version of the role.
In this July 2020 photo, former president Donald Trump stands at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
As Donald Trump prepares to address the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC, here’s how other former presidents have occupied their time after leaving the White House.
A cartoonist’s image of Sen. Charles Sumner’s May 1856 beating by South Carolina Rep. Preston Brooks.
Wikipedia
‘Mind your manners’ isn’t just something your mother told you. Manners – and civility – are an essential component of how things get done in government, and the Founding Fathers knew it.
The U.S. Capitol is modeled on the baroque Cathedrals of Europe, which were built to honor monarchs and popes.
Pixnio
The domed neoclassical Capitol building was inspired by European cathedrals and the Roman Pantheon – shrines to imperial power, not rule by and for the people.
Attorney general nominee Merrick Garland speaks during an event with President-elect Joe Biden.
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
History shows that attorneys general who are picked by – and serve at the pleasure of – the president are not as independent as they may be expected to be.
A 1975 stamp printed in St. Vincent shows U.S. presidents George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who were all vocally pro-inoculation and vaccination.
(Shutterstock)
In the early years of the United States, several American presidents were in favour of public health inoculation and vaccination strategies.
Republican nominee Gov. Mike Pence and Democratic nominee Sen. Tim Kaine stand after the vice-presidential debate in Farmville, Va., Oct. 4, 2016.
Joe Raedle/Pool via AP
‘Mind your manners’ isn’t just something your mother told you. Manners – and civility – are an essential component of how things get done in government, and the Founding Fathers knew it.
Voters mark their ballots at a church in Stamford, Conn.
AP Photo/Jessica Hill
A theologian argues, based on the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, that a political institution has its limits when it comes to being called ‘sacred.’
Trump falsely declaring a win in the early hours of Nov. 4, 2020, the day after the US election, as ballot counting continued in Pennsylvania and other battleground states.
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
Five of the six disputed presidential elections in US history were resolved and the country moved on – but one ended in civil war. What will happen if the 2020 election is contested?
A transcript from the Constitutional Convention records the official report creating the Electoral College.
U.S. National Archives
Three approaches were debated during the Constitutional Convention – election by Congress, selection by state legislatures and a popular election, though that was restricted to white landowning men.
People see bias in the stories that favor the other party, but they tend not to see bias in stories favoring their own party.
Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images
Charges of media bias are nothing new, though they’ve gotten louder since 2016, led by President Trump. But a press free to take a variety of viewpoints was the founders’ intention.
Today’s genuine pessimism about America’s future has very old roots.
Aaron Foster/Getty
Think American democracy is ending? You’re not alone, writes a historian. American leaders have often yielded to despair – as far back as the founding of the republic.
President Donald Trump works on a smartphone, a common tool in his political communication efforts.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Five of the six contested presidential elections in U.S. history were resolved and the country moved on – one ended in civil war. What will happen if the upcoming election is contested?
In a 1775 cartoon, a British cartoonist mocks how wealthy elites were compelled by ordinary Americans to respect trade and price regulations.
Philip Dawe/Wikimedia Commons
If President Trump’s attacks on the justice system are meant to intimidate, there’s one class of employees who are immune to that: federal judges who have lifetime tenure.