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Studying the role of Native Americans in assisting freedom seekers in the pre-Civil War Midwest requires the historian to assemble an archive from a range of disparate sources.

The Navassa Lighthouse On December 8, 1859, to forestall a Haitian attempt to take possession of Navassa, a Caribbean island south of Cuba, U.S. Secretary of State Lewis Cass made a momentous decision ...

Your favorite quotes about history -- and many you've never heard!

Submission Guidelines In December 2023, HNN transitioned to a new editorial model that centers on its weekly email newsletter. Each week, the newsletter serves up short-form essays to help readers ...

Climate science is not a new discipline and the scientific consensus on climate change is far older than many people think.

In 18th century Paris, policemen accepted that property could take the form of people.

The Israeli historian Benny Morris did it again. Morris is not only a historian with impressive achievements but also an Israeli and international icon. One year after the publication of his book The ...

The incarceration of African Americans did not begin suddenly with the end of the Civil War. Confinement functioned as a punishment during bondage as well.

Divine Sister Soho Playhouse 15 Van Dam St. New York, N.Y. I attended Roman Catholic grade school run by nuns in a small town in New Jersey in the 1950s. Like many students, I loved and hated the ...

The past and present of counterfactual history, from antiquity to the Napoleonic Wars to a few very active subreddits.

Julie Greene is professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park. Workers at the Panama Canal, 1913. Photograph by Harris & Ewing. [Library of Congress] A young man named Edgar ...