Skip to main content

Featured Articles

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

The young rockabilly star autographed each of our forearms.

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

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

Classic Essays from Our Archives

Columbus and Genocide | October 1975, Vol 26, No 6

By Edward T. Stone

The discoverer of the New World was responsible for the annihilation of the peaceful Arawak Indians

columbus

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.

truman civil rights

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.

American Heritage Logo

Herbert Hoover Describes the Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson | June 1958, Vol 9, No 4

By Herbert Hoover

The great tragedy of the twenty-eighth President as witnessed by his loyal lieutenant, the thirty-first.

woodrow wilson

Did Castro Okay the Kennedy Assassination? | Winter 2009, Vol 58, No 6

By Gus Russo

Incriminating new evidence has come to light in KGB files and the authors' interviews of former Cuban intelligence officers which indicates that Fidel Castro probably knew in advance of Oswald's intent to kill JFK.

jfk

The Man of the Century | May/June 1994, Vol 45, No 3

By Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

Of all the Allied leaders, argues FDR's biographer, only Roosevelt saw clearly the shape of the new world they were fighting to create.

American Heritage Logo

    Today in History

  • LBJ creates Warren Commission

    One week after President Kennedy's assassination, President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the alleged assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, his death, and any possible conspiracies.

    More »

  • Whitman Massacre in present-day Washington

    A band of Cayuse and Umatilla Indians massacre Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and eleven other missionaries near Fort Walla Walla in present-day Washington. Several causes include a Cholera outbreak, a local conflict between Catholic and Protestant missionaries, and a renegade Cayuse named Joe Lewis who sought to instigate a destabilizing crisis.

    More »

  • Louisa May Alcott born

    American novelist Louisa May Alcott is born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Alcott, most famous for Little Women, was the daughter of noted transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott, who moved the family to rural Massachusetts to embrace the natural world. 

    More »

SUPPORT THIS WEBSITE BY BUYING A NEW EBOOK!