Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
George Washington
The business of forging George Washington’s signature and correspondence to sell to unwitting buyers goes back 150 years.
As the editor of the papers of George Washington at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, I have the privilege of meeting with many people who come bearing documents supposedly signed by the first president.
America’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra-violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between "patriots" and loyalists.
On April 22, 1775, three days after a British column marched out of Boston and clashed with militiamen at Lexington and Concord, the news—and the cry of Revolution!—reached Danbury, Connecticut, where 18-year-old Stephen Maples Jarvis was working on the family farm.
An impetuous and sometimes corrupt Congress has often hamstrung the efforts of the president since the earliest days of the republic.
On a little-remarked, steamy day in late June 1973, a revolution took place in Washington, D.C., one that would transfer far more power and wealth than did the revolt against King George III in 1776.
Stalwart as he was, the general was often ill. A doctor studies his record and notes shortcomings in Eighteenth-Century medical care.
How Baron von Steuben used a tough winter to make a solid army out of a collection of untrained volunteers
On the first day of December, 1777, a group of four foreign gentlemen landed from the French ship Le Flamand at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
How tough Henry Knox hauled a train of cannon over wintry trails to help drive the British away from Boston
Major Patrick Ferguson's instinct of chivalry spared the life of an American officer with “a remarkable large cocked hat” who was reconnoitering at Chadds Ford and came within range of British rifles.
The vivacious Sally Fairfax stole the young man’s heart long before he met Martha
ON MARCH 30, 1877, the New York Herald, one of the largest newspapers in America, printed a passionate love letter that had been written on September 12, 1758. Surely not hot news, you might ask? The Herald ’s editors knew what they were doing.
Archaeologists for the George Washington Foundation have found the site of George Washington’s boyhood home on a bluff overlooking the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Sharp business skills ensured the first president’s phenomenal success.
America’s greatest leader was its first—George Washington. He ran two start-ups, the army and the presidency, and chaired the most important committee meeting in U.S. history, the Constitutional Convention. His agribusiness and real-estate portfolio made him America’s richest man. He was as well-known in his time as any star actor, rapper, or athlete is now. Men followed him into battle; women longed to dance with him; famous men, almost as great as he was, some of them smarter or better-spoken, did what he told them to do. He was the Founding CEO.
George Nelson Clocks
George Nelson said he got into furniture design by accident, and indeed the architect didn’t actually create many of the mid-twentieth-century modernist icons synonymous with his name. The bubble lamp, the coconut chair, the sling sofa, and others he’s commonly credited with were styled by associates in his New York City office.
How Mount Vernon rebuilt the first president
The 3 Faces of George Washington The Buyable Past Resources The Gettysburg Gospen
On the morning of October 17, 1781, an officer emerged from the British lines holding a white handkerchief.
As October began, General Charles Cornwallis and his army of 8000 redcoats and Hessians knew they were in deep trouble. In late August, after a summer filled with conflicting instructions, they had been ordered to establish a naval base on the Chesapeake.
Suppose they could go on "Meet The Press"...
How a lying poseur from Prussia gave America its army
There was a kernel of truth in the drama. Friedrich von Steuben was a Prussian soldier who had served with distinction in the Seven Years’ War and had become an aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great. But he had never advanced beyond the rank of captain.
I’ve been fighting the war of the American Revolution (on paper, that is) off and on since 1962, and my research has included journals, diaries, letters, newspapers, and books on nearly all the campaigns.
As America goes into its 55th presidential election, we should remember that there might have been only one if we hadn’t had the only original candidate on Earth who could do the job.
There were no primaries back then to select presidential candidates, no organized political parties, no orchestrated campaigns, not even any established election procedures.
The father of my colleague Carla Davidson was a newspaperman back in the racy violence of the Front-Page days; he was also an accomplished novelist and television writer and a historian of wide interests.
Washington becomes a soldier.
On October 31, 1759, Robert Dinwiddie, the royal lieutenant governor of Virginia, dispatched the 21-year-old George Washington into the wilds of the Ohio territory on a delicate diplomatic mission.
Richard Brookhiser has spent four years trying to capture for the television screen the character of one of the greatest Americans.
This is our 16th annual travel issue. When we started, in 1987, we were motivated partly by knowing that no other magazine was doing this: tying an American passion for travel to an equally intense interest in the nation’s history.
In his last speech as president, he inaugurated the spirit of the 1960s.
Whatever the calendars say, in some figurative sense, America’s 1950s ended, and the 1960s began, on January 17, 1961, when President Dwight D.
Why a 200-year-old decoration offers evidence in the controversy surrounding the Hiroshima bombing.
Why a 200-year-old decoration offers evidence in the controversy surrounding the Hiroshima bombing.
A major new installation at the Smithsonian Institution explores the nation’s biggest and most important job.
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