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 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.

"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.

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.

“The Tide is Setting Strongly Against Us” | Winter 2010, Vol 59, No 4

By Edward L. Ayers

Lincoln’s bid for reelection in 1864 faced serious challenges from a popular opponent and a nation weary of war.

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.

Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other? | Fall 2008, Vol 58, No 5

By Annette Gordon-Reed

To call it loaded question does not begin to do justice to the matter, given America’s tortured racial history and its haunting legacy.

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.
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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.
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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.
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