American History

A woman operates an early decryption machine for the NSA’s progenitor

How the NSA Stopped Trying to Prevent the Spread of Encryption And Decided to Just Break It Instead

The NSA spent decades trying to stop the spread of encryption technology

“Jews praying on Jewish New Year”

See How New Yorkers Celebrated Rosh Hashanah a Century Ago

Photographs from the early 1900s show Rosh Hashanah in New York

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Cow Tipping Never Was And Never Will Be a Thing People Actually Do

Scientists have actually taken the time to investigate the idea, and produced some hard numbers that indicated that cow-tipping "has no leg to stand on"

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A Reminder From Yosemite’s Massive 1988 Fire: Wildfire Is Largely a Human Problem

This isn't the first time fire has threatened a national park

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Why the Smithsonian Just Can’t Quit Studying the Civil War

150 years later, the war is still in focus

What Isaac Asimov Thought 2014 Would Look Like

Past predictions about the future oftentimes fail miserably, but many of Isaac Asimov's futuristic visions were pretty accurate

Strikes began in July in New York, and have now spread to the South.

Why It’s a Big Deal That Fast Food Strikes Have Spread to the South

Fast food workers are asking for more money and to unionize, something that's unusual to see in the South

Saving the Last of the Great Carousels

The ornate, well made carousels of the past are in danger - degrading, being sold piecemeal and sometimes even for parts

Boston Children’s Hospital Once Relied on the Opera to Power X-Rays

In the 1880's the Children's Hospital in Boston didn't have electricity, so it couldn't use X-rays. But the nearby Opera House did

Photo courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection. Interactive by Esri. Text by Natasha Geiling.

This Interactive Map Compares the New York City of 1836 to Today

Manhattan had a very different topography than the concrete jungle we know today

Photo courtesy of David Rumsey Map Collection. Interactive by Esri. Text by Natasha Geiling.

When the Lincoln Memorial Was Underwater

James Keily’s 1851 map of Washington shows a considerably smaller district, before the Potomac River was filled in to make way for monuments

The symbol for chemical weapons

The U.S. Knew Iraq Was Using Chemical Weapons, Helped Out Anyway

Recently declassified documents detail the CIA's knowledge of Iraq's chemical weapon program in the 1980s

Muriel Siebert, First Woman With a Seat on the Stock Exchange, Dies at Age 80

Siebert bought her seat in 1967, but she remained the only woman on the exchange for almost 10 years after that

Venus, a great place to take a few laps in orbit

The Lame Reason NASA Gave Up on Sending Astronauts to Venus in 1973

We had the technology, but not the will

The Last of the Watergate Tapes Show Just How Weasely Nixon Was

Nixon's public declarations and his private communications were a bundle of contradictions

From 1700 to 2000, the evolution of American anthromes

Watch How America’s Lands Changed From Forests to Fields

"Arthromes" are like biomes, but they acknowledge humanity's influence

Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza with President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1962

The CIA Finally Admitted It Orchestrated the Iranian Coup of 1953

A newly-released 1970s internal CIA report admits the agency's involvement in the 1953 coup

Discoveries by European explorers that didn’t involve claiming land where people were already living.

These Are All the Places That Europeans Actually Discovered

Of all the places you think were discovered by Europeans, how many were actually discovered by Europeans?

Area 51, as seen on Google Maps

Area 51 is, Officially, a Real Place

Area 51 now officially exists, newly declassified documents say

Obama Is Actually the Third President to Install Solar Panels at the White House

Jimmy Carter's 1979 solar panels were stripped down by Ronald Reagan, while no one noticed when the Bush administration installed panels to heat the pool

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