Understanding Winter Solstice

Winter Solstice this year will fall on December 21, but what exactly is a solstice? Learn more about how this astronomical event has been...

On This Day: Congress Passes Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, Authorizing Vietnam War

On Aug. 7, 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution based on what is now widely believed to be faulty intelligence, plunging the...

Best Websites to Find Historic and Exemplary Speeches and Talks

American Rhetoric is dedicated to archiving American speeches, lectures, sermons, interviews and “other important media events.” Its “Online Speech Bank” contains full text, audio...

On This Day: United States Drops Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima

On Aug. 6, 1945, U.S. war plane Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy,” a 8,900-pound atomic bomb, on Hiroshima, Japan. Within eight days, Japan surrendered,...

Best Websites for Historic and Contemporary Interviews

The Mike Wallace Interviews was a series of prime-time television interviews conducted between 1957 and 1960. Wallace donated 65 interviews conducted between 1957 and...

The True Meaning of Memorial Day

Today, Memorial Day is part of the three-day weekend each May that signals the beginning of summer, and is marked by beach trips and...

Gregory Hines, Tap Dancer, Choreographer and Actor

He was an actor, singer and a writer, but first and foremost, Gregory Hines was a dancer. Hines both popularized the art form of...

Why Do We Have Daylight Saving Time?

Why do we fall back one hour in the autumn, and spring ahead one hour in the spring? Most U.S. residents dutifully set their clocks...

Three Kansas HS Students “Changed Poland and Changed the World”

Can students really change the world? In 1999, in connection with a National History Day project, three Kansas high school students wrote a play that drastically...

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Today

The first installment of the serial “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” appeared in a periodical on June 5, 1851. The serial’s popularity was so immense that...