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Featured Essays
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.
Our Founders profoundly transformed the way people participate in government.
America 250!
How One Man Launched a Revolution | Spring 2018 , Vol 63, No 1
By Christine GibsonThomas Paine's Common Sense helped Americans "decide upon the propriety of separation,” as George Washington said.
The Plight of Massachusetts Loyalists | Spring 2024, Vol 69, No 2
By Larry C. KerpelmanIn “the cradle of the American Revolution,” loyalists to the Crown faced a harsh choice: live with terrible abuse where they were, or flee to friendlier, but alien regions.
“Boston Harbor a Tea-pot This Night!” | Spring 2024, Vol 69, No 2
By Benjamin CarpThe dumping of tons of tea in protest set the stage for the American Revolution and was a window on the culture and attitudes of the time.
The Revolution Could Have Started Here | Summer 2024, Vol 69, No 3
By Bob ThompsonAt a curious stone tower in Somerville, Massachusetts, panic in 1774 could have sparked a war seven months before Lexington and Concord entered the history books.
For America’s 250th Birthday, Let’s Think Local | Summer 2023, Vol 68, No 4
By Hans ZeigerCommunities around the U.S. hope that the nation's upcoming 250th anniversary will inspire Americans to appreciate the importance of shared experience and preserving history.
Classic Essays from the Archives
Did Castro Okay the Kennedy Assassination? | Winter 2009, Vol 58, No 6
By Gus RussoIncriminating 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.
Alice Paul: “I Was Arrested, Of Course…” | February 1974, Summer 2025, Vol 25, No 2
By Robert S. GallagherAn interview with the famed suffragette, Alice Paul
The Day The Civil War Ended | June/July 1978, Vol 29, No 4
By Bruce CattonAt the Gettysburg reunion fifty years after the battle, it was no longer blue and gray. Now it was all gray.
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