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Articles on US history

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A 1973 photo shows an estimated 5,000 people, women and men, marching around the Minnesota Capitol building protesting the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. AP Photo

Many anti-abortion activists before Roe were liberals who were inspired by 20th-century Catholic social teaching

A historian explains why the pre-Roe anti-abortion movement was filled with liberal Democrats who opposed the Vietnam War and supported the expansion of the welfare state.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden visit a memorial at Robb Elementary School to pay their respects to the victims of last week’s mass shooting. Evan Vucci/AP

American exceptionalism: the poison that cannot protect its children from violent death

American institutions are seemingly powerless to enact gun reform because so many Americans believe – consciously or not – that any sacrifice is worth it to live in the best country in the world.
Anti-Catholic riots, like this one in Philadelphia in 1844, worried Canadians. H. Bucholzer via Library of Congress

Canada has long feared the chaos of US politics

‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ were the founding principles of the US. In Canada, the goals are ‘Peace, Order, and good Government.’
Parents and activists who support transgender rights rally before a school board meeting on Aug. 10, 2021, in Ashburn, Virginia. Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Trans people have a long history in Appalachia – but politicians prefer to ignore it

The ongoing debate over transgender rights in rural America frames transness as a nascent movement, ignoring a long undercurrent of transgender history that is all but forgotten.
These statues of enslaved young boys are part of a modern-day depiction of southern plantation life at the Whitney Museum in Louisiana. AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

Modern-day culture wars are playing out on historic tours of slaveholding plantations

The romanticized notions of Southern gentility are increasingly at odds with historical reality as the lives, culture and contributions of the enslaved are becoming integral on tours of plantations.
A dairy barn in Waitsfield, Vermont, built circa 1890. Thomas Visser

Why are barns painted red?

Barns are practical buildings, designed to safeguard farm animals and equipment. Why are so many of them painted to stand out from the landscape?
Sign at a boat ramp on Lake Mead, near Boulder City, Nevada, Aug. 13, 2021. The lake currently is roughly two-thirds empty. AP Photo/John Locher

As climate change parches the Southwest, here’s a better way to share water from the shrinking Colorado River

A Western scholar proposes allocating water from the Colorado River based on percentages of its actual flow instead of fixed amounts that exceed what’s there – and including tribes this time.

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