With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Roundup Top 10!


Pop Culture Roundup: This Week

This week ... "Roots," "The Abolitionists," Morley Safer, Norman Rockwell, Emily Dickinson, and more!


Crazy, Fascinating & Horrifying: Latest Edition

This week ... Popes, Nazis, and pencil sharpeners.


American Democracy Is in Crisis Mode and We're All Complicit: Here's What Needs to Happen

by Jim Sleeper

The crisis that has made Trump's victory a possibility isn’t about Trump. It’s about what's happening to the American people.


Why China still can’t make sense of the Cultural Revolution

by Kerry Brown

The Chinese Communist Party of the 21st century likes its history simple, its heroes and villains clear cut and its messages direct and unambiguous.


If Trump Breaks Up the G.O.P., It Won’t Be a First

by Sean Wilentz

It’s rare, but major parties have fallen apart before, with friction over immigrants a common culprit.


Bernie Sanders's Political Ancestor, Wayne Lyman Morse

by Jeffrey Frank

In some ways, Sanders’s career calls to mind the four-term Oregon Senator Wayne Lyman Morse, whose fierce opinions and commitment to something he called “constitutional liberalism” annoyed both major parties.


Public restrooms and dignity for all

by Margaret Storey

Under Jim Crow, if there was no bathroom for you, you either did not go, or faced the choice between personal humiliation or arrest.


Two Myths About the United States and Vietnam

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Setting the Record Straight


Did Sykes-Picot favor Zionism?

by Martin Kramer

The answer is no.


A brief history of the ‘Nakba’ in Israel

by Eitan Bronstein Aparicio

Why it was acknowledged at first and why it disappeared from public view in Israel -- and then suddenly made a dramatic reappearance.


Kennewick Man will be reburied, but quandaries around human remains won’t

by Samuel Redman

One of the most complete prehistoric human skeletons discovered in North America, “Kennewick Man” also became the most controversial.


The brain is not a computer

by Robert Epstein

Each age reinterprets the brain in terms of its prevailing technology. This is an error.