AMERICAN HERITAGE

Featured Articles

American resistance to British authority developed with stunning speed 250 years ago in response to George III’s inflexibility.

The Night I Met Elvis

by Curtis Wilkie

The young rockabilly star autographed each of our forearms.

Solving Our Political Disarray

by Yuval Levin

The Constitution is more than a legal code. It is also a framework for union and solidarity.

Women Finally Get Full Credit

by Elisabeth Griffith

Fifty years ago, the Equal Credit Act was an important step in affording women control of their own finances.

Classic Essays from Our Archives

The Conversion of Harry Truman | November 1991, Vol 42, No 7

By William E. Leuchtenburg

A child of the South's "Lost Cause," Truman broke with his convictions to make civil rights a concern of the national government for the first time since Reconstruction. In so doing, he changed the nation forever.

Searching for “Shenandoah” | Winter 2022, Vol 67, No 1

By Bruce Watson

It's one of the oldest folk ballads in our national songbook, but where did it come from? The answer is complex, multi-layered, American.

1619: The Year That Shaped America | Winter 2019, Vol 64, No 1

By James Horn

Four hundred years ago this year, two momentous events happened in Britain’s fledgling colony in Virginia: the New World’s first democratic assembly convened, and an English privateer brought kidnapped Africans to sell as slaves. Such were the conflicted origins of modern America.

"The Sparck of Rebellion" | Winter 2010, Vol 59, No 4

By Douglas Brinkley

Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.

How My Father and President Kennedy Saved The World | October 2002, Vol 53, No 5

By Sergei Khrushchev

The Cuban Missile Crisis as seen from the Kremlin

The Slave Who Sued for Freedom | March 1990, Vol 41, No 2

By Jon Swan

While the American Revolution was still being fought, Mum Bett declared that the new nation’s principle of liberty must extend to her, too. It took 80 years and a far-more-terrible war to confirm the rights that she had demanded.

Today in History

John Glenn orbits the Earth

Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit Earth aboard Friendship 7, one of the Project Mercury spacecraft.
Battle of Olustee

Confederate forces are victorious at the Battle of Olustee, the largest Civil War battle fought in the state of Florida. Many African-American Union soldiers, including the Massachusetts 54th Regiment, fought in the battle.