The Fourth of July commemorates colonial America’s declared independence from Great Britain. But, do you know how the Independence Day came to be a national holiday, and why it is held on July 4th?
London, 1858. Citizens suffer through a very disgusting, very smelly summer that, almost 170 years later, is still ominously remembered as the Great Stink.
In 1837, a rebellion in Canada and the destruction of an American steamship brought the United States and Great Britain to the brink of war.
Today, all eligible members of the LGBTQ+ community are allowed to serve in America’s military. However, it hasn’t always been that way. The treatment of queer people in the armed forces has a fraught history.
On May 19, 1536, the citizens of London gathered around a scaffold at the Tower of London, where the swift chop of a sword brought an end to the life of Anne Boleyn, the second of King Henry VIII’s six wives. Her crime? Failure to bear a son.
What happens when no presidential candidate wins a majority in the Electoral College? The election goes to the House of Representatives, and things get a little messy.
Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet when she became the longest-serving Secretary of Labor in 1933. Her career changed the lives of every working American.
In 1930, near the town of Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, 3,000 men worked in ten-hour shifts drilling through sandstone to construct the Hawk’s Nest Tunnel. Within five years, more than 750 of those men would die of a deadly and preventable disease.
Near the end of World War I, Eugene Debs delivered an anti-war speech in Ohio. Two weeks later, he was arrested and imprisoned for his words. In 1920, he ran for president from his prison cell, ultimately waging the most successful campaign by a socialist candidate in American history.
December 15 marks Bill of Rights Day, commemorating the 1791 ratification of the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights. However, crafting a Bill of Rights was highly controversial at the time.
