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This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind

We looked at six big issues—interracial marriage, prohibition, women’s suffrage, abortion, same-sex marriage, and recreational marijuana — to show how this has happened in the past, and may again in the very near future.

The history of British slave ownership has been buried: now its scale can be revealed

A new BBC documentary tells how a trove of documents lays bare the names of Britain’s 46,000 slave owners, including relatives of Gladstone and Orwell

NYT editorial weighs in on the long-running dispute over Ike’s memorial

by NYT Editorial

National consensus, not family members, should determine the fate of a memorial to a national hero.

'One of the largest human experiments in history' was conducted on unsuspecting residents of San Francisco

In 1950 the US military conducted a test to see whether San Francisco's fog could be used to help spread a biological weapon in a "simulated germ-warfare attack."

‘Hamilton’ Heads to Broadway in a Hip-Hop Retelling

The musical retelling of the life of the nation’s first Treasury secretary is poised to become not only a hit, but a turning point for the art form and a cultural conversation piece.

The Holocaust: World War II History in a Private’s Letters to His Wife

Pvt. Hyman Schulman’s correspondence became “not only a record of a historical event, but what it really meant to have a life, and a love, interrupted by extraordinary events.”

While Some Are Shocked by ‘Go Set a Watchman,’ Others Find Nuance in a Bigoted Atticus Finch

With all the debate brewing over the origins of Harper Lee’s novel “Go Set a Watchman,” the biggest bombshell turned out to be an explosive plot twist that no one saw coming.

The West is complaining that Russia is trying to rewrite the history of Srebrenica?

Russia's veto of a resolution honoring the dead is worrisome, say critics in the West.

In Bolivia, Pope Francis Apologizes for Church’s ‘Grave Sins’

Francis repeated familiar themes in sharply critiquing the global economic order and warning of environmental catastrophe — but also added a new twist with his apology.

Racist Symbols: Latest Developments

Click here to keep track of the ongoing debate about Confederate flag, statues and other symbols of controversy.  

Srebrenica Massacre, After 20 Years, Still Casts a Long Shadow in Bosnia

As Europe marks the 20th anniversary of the massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, reconciliation has been halting in a region where memories and wounds, personal and political, run deep.

Poll: Republicans favor the Confederate flag, Democrats oppose it

Whereas 54% of Americans today view the Confederate flag as a symbol of Southern pride, 34%, including 58% of Democrats, believe it to be a racist symbol. Republicans support flying of the flag by 67%.

Is it really vandalism when someone throws paint on a Confederate memorial planted on a college campus?

Some historians are suggesting it’s more akin to Historical Guerrilla Warfare.

Inside the Nuclear Bunker Where America Preserves Its Movie History

After being decommissioned at the end of the Cold War, the facility sat around for a few years before philanthropist David Woodley Packard (son of the Hewlitt-Packard co-founder) swooped in, remodeled it, and gave it to the Library of Congress.

Even as Museum Piece, Confederate Flag Is in Dispute

Of the Confederacy museum, “Most of us real Southerners dropped their membership quite a few years ago.”

The Memorial Where Slavery Is Real

America has only one federally funded slave memorial—and it’s been falling apart.

Thomas Piketty accuses Germany of forgetting history as it lectures Greece

Piketty says that the Germans are only in the strong economic position they are today because they benefited from the forgiveness of their neighbors after World War II.

Greek ‘No’ May Have Its Roots in Heroic Myths and Real Resistance

Experts and analysts say the vote sprang from a deep cultural and historical strain of defiance in apparently hopeless situations, honed over centuries.

150 years later, schools are still a battlefield for interpreting Civil War

Five million public school students in Texas will begin using new social studies textbooks this fall based on state academic standards that barely address racial segregation.

Where are America's memorials to pain of slavery, black resistance?

Erecting historical markers and memorials of both slavery and black resistance would be the first among many necessary steps in breaking the cycle of the past.