1600s
How Hooch Lubricated American Life
Besides making crops portable, cocktails like slings, flips, punches, and bounce were healthier than water
American History
Audiobook Review| How Rodgers and Hammerstein Revolutionized the Musical
The music-making duo helped redefine theater and the American Broadway musical
Civil Rights
Supreme Court OK’d Deporting Japanese-American Citizens to the Desert
Repudiated decision upheld presidential power to counter perceived national security threats
American Independence
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: Colonial Cryptographers Helped Patriots Win the Revolution
After a slow start, Washington's spymasters used mathematics, chemistry, and sneakiness to turn the tide against the British
American History
This Week In History: The 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition
The now-famous Lewis and Clark Expedition was conducted as the Corps of Discovery, a special unit of the United States Army.
American Civil War
Audiobook Review| Violence within Congress Spurs the Civil War
Author Joanne B. Freeman recounts how Southern Democrats’ attacks on critics of slavery spilled from the Capitol building onto streets and dueling grounds
American History
Flaming Meteorite Fires Up American Brainpower
Glowing object that streaked across the Connecticut sky in 1807 puts a young nation on the scientific map
Feature Story
That Time When Jefferson Tried to Have a Supreme Court Justice Impeached
'Dangerous' Federalist Chase's 1805 trial illustrates the pitfalls of Trump ouster drive
American Independence
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: How Americans Made English a Bodacious New Language
Settlers created fresh, colorful words and phrases to describe their land and life
Civil Rights
Insidious Inspiration: How Jim Crow Inspired the Nazis
American statutes barring interracial sex and marriage were model for anti-Jewish Nuremberg laws
American History
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE: When a Plague Tormented America’s Horses
For a few months in 1872-73, a mysterious equine malady brought whoa to the U.S. economy
Europe
Precision Bass: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Instrumental Soul
Leo Fender's rhythmic innovation powered the music of a generation
Feature Story
John D. Rockefeller Sr.’s Pap Was a Con Man
'Devil Bill' was a grifter, a bigamist, and a pain in his Baptist son's behind
1900s
Audiobook Review| The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
Celebrated as “the Father of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration,” Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley documented the effects preservatives had on the Gilded Age’s food supply.
Civil Rights
Hubert Harrison: Harlem’s ‘Black Socrates’
Shocked by American racism, Caribbean immigrant pushed education and self-empowerment
American Independence
This Small Battle in Vermont May Have Turned the Tide of the American Revolution
1777 American defeat in the Vermont mountains weakened the British, setting them up to lose at Saratoga
