Menu Close

Articles on US history

Displaying 1 - 20 of 433 articles

Under cover of night, Colonists boarded the ships, dumped the tea chests and sparked a revolution. Hulton Fine Art Collection/Art Images via Getty Images

How the Boston Tea Party’s ‘destruction of the tea’ changed American history

An attack on private property angered Colonial leaders as much as the British public – but a strong reaction from Parliament hardened the positions of the opposing sides, making compromise impossible.
Bulldozed land at the planned site of a controversial police training facility, with Atlanta in the distance. Cheney Orr/AFP via Getty Images

A First Amendment battle looms in Georgia, where the state is framing opposition to a police training complex as a criminal conspiracy

This isn’t the first time that US authorities have criminalized civil disobedience or framed grassroots organizing as a conspiracy.
Students become more emotionally engaged with history when it’s presented in an interactive way, research shows. SDI Productions via Getty Images

‘Time warp’ takes students to Native American past to search for solutions for the future

Rather than have students memorize names and dates, this history curriculum invites students to grapple with real-life issues faced by people from the past.
‘Valley of the Yosemite’ by the 19th-century artist Albert Bierstadt, owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. VCG Wilson/Corbis via Getty Images

In America, national parks are more than scenic − they’re sacred. But they were created at a cost to Native Americans

The idea of Manifest Destiny inspired Americans to push west, leading to the creation of the first national parks. But those beliefs spelled removal for many Native American groups.
The North Carolina memorial stands in Gettysburg National Military Park on Aug. 10, 2020. Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

Gettysburg tells the story of more than a battle − the military park shows what national ‘reconciliation’ looked like for decades after the Civil War

How should opposing armies be commemorated on a battlefield? Gettysburg offers an especially interesting example of today’s debates over Confederate monuments.
A Black actor in 1974 impersonating an enslaved man in Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. George Bryant/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Why separating fact from fiction is critical in teaching US slavery

Though it is a fact that some enslaved people learned valuable skills, it’s a myth that they had the same path of upward mobility that white laborers enjoyed.
Thousands of people attend a pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in New York in May 1934, with counterprotestors outside. Anthony Potter Collection/Hulton Archive via Getty Images

Nazi Germany had admirers among American religious leaders – and white supremacy fueled their support

Two social scientists analyzed periodicals from US religious leaders in 1935 to determine what factors influenced groups’ sympathy, ambivalence or outrage about Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Fly-fishing in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. Joseph/Flickr

What social change movements can learn from fly fishing: The value of a care-focused message

Founded in 1959, the membership group Trout Unlimited has changed the culture of fly-fishing and mobilized members to support conservation. Could its approach work for other social problems?
Former President Donald Trump arrives for a campaign rally on July 29 in Erie, Pa., a few days before he was indicted on charges he worked to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

America is on the brink of another civil war, this one fuelled by Donald Trump

American history can partly explain why some Americans have come to believe only Donald Trump has their interests at heart, and will vote for him — and fight for him — despite his indictments.

Top contributors

More