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Featured Essays

Some writers ignore a mountain of evidence that is contrary to their theories about the telephone's development.

Congress forbade living persons from appearing on paper currency in 1866, after an unpopular Treasury Department official put himself on the five-cent note.

The extravaganza celebrating the nation’s first century was the greatest cultural event of America’s Gilded Age.

At the nation’s pivotal moment — the Civil War — two seventeenth-century vessels kept sailing through the American mind: the Mayflower and the slaver White Lion. Their wakes still cut our waters.

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The Forgotten Battle of Menotomy | Spring 2025, Vol 70, No 2

By Michael Ruderman

Overshadowed in memory by Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts town of Menotomy saw the most violent and deadly fighting on April 19, 1775.

menotomy

Leadership of the Founders | Winter 2026, Vol 71, No 1

By Joseph J. Ellis

Our nation came into being thanks to an unexpected explosion of political talent in an emerging nation on the fringe of the Atlantic world.

founding fathers

“What, to the American Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” | Summer 2019, Vol 64, No 3

By Bruce Watson

In what many consider the greatest anti-slavery oration ever given, Frederick Douglass called for “the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.”

frederick douglass

“Shall We Have a King?” | Fall 2025, Vol 70, No 4

By William E. Leuchtenburg

Some delegates at the Constitutional Convention wanted a strong executive, while others feared the American president might become a king.

constitutional convention

Rethinking the Boston Massacre | Special Issue - George Washington Prize 2018, Vol 63, No 2

By Eric Hinderaker

It is one of the most notorious incidents in American history, and also one of the least understood.

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Classic Essays from the Archives

“The Miraculous Care Of Providence” | February/March 1982, Vol 33, No 2

By James Thomas Flexner

George Washington’s Narrow Escapes

washington princeton

"The Sparck of Rebellion" | Winter 2010, Summer 2025, Vol 59, No 4

By Douglas Brinkley

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

boston tea party

“Medic!” | November 1997, Vol 48, No 7

By Stephen E. Ambrose

In a hard war, theirs may have been the hardest job of all. Along with Army doctors and nurses, they worked something very close to a miracle in the European theater.

medic

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