Current Events that Relate to History
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CommentTrump: The US Lost Vietnam and Afghanistan Due to Woke
Trump thinks the US was constrained by “political correctness” in Vietnam and Afghanistan. But those wars were characterized by dehumanization and destruction.Jacobin -
ComparisonNixon Now Looks Restrained
The former President once made an offhand remark about Charles Manson’s guilt. The reaction shows how aberrant Donald Trump’s rhetoric is.The New Yorker -
NarrativeNo One Gave a Speech Like Patrick Henry
Henry’s fiery oratory turned words into revolution, merging faith, emotion, and democracy to help speak a nation into being.The Atlantic -
CommentVideo Games Have Long Been a Convenient Scapegoat
Blaming video games for violence saves Americans from having to grapple with deeper, harder to solve societal problems.Made By History -
Book ReviewShould We Move on From Hitler?
What happens when Hitler’s shadow fades—and what moral vision replaces it?3 Quarks Daily -
ArgumentThe Supreme Court Is Being Tested on History Once Again
The leading arguments in support of Black voting rights were race-conscious at their core.Slate -
exhibitPolarized Lenses
The battle lines taking shape across America's political, media, and cultural spaces seem to be thickening by the day. How can history help us navigate this growing polarization?
From the HNN Archive
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How to Succeed in Government Without Really Trying
The long history of promising an “efficient” federal government. -
If the Slipper Doesn’t Fit
A scorched shoe is a crucial part of Zelda Fitzgerald’s modern mythology. But there’s no proof it existed. -
Indifferent to the Fate of Freedom Elsewhere
Jimmy Carter is known for his defense of human rights worldwide. But in 1979, he threatened to deport thousands of Iranian student protesters. -
Elevating the Few
What JD Vance excludes from the history of the Civil War and immigration. -
Whose Side Are College Administrators On?
There’s a long history of politicians targeting student protesters — and of campus leaders abetting those efforts. -
Solve for AI
What the history of the pocket calculator reveals about the future of AI in classrooms. -
“At Any Future Time”
In 1880, the daughter of a Welsh politician turned to fiction to expose perspectives missing from the official record, upending histories for generations to come. -
Letting the World Scream
In 1984, the U.S. rejected the International Court of Justice’s jurisdiction, revealing its tendency to ignore international rules it sees as unfavorable — even when it helped write them. -
Scared Out of the Community
Between 1929 and 1939 approximately half a million Mexicans left the United States. Many of the departing families included American-born children to whom Mexico, not the United States, was the foreign land. -
When Good Housekeeping Meant Getting Vaccinated Against Polio
The pages of 1950s lifestyle magazines offer a glimpse of a time when childhood vaccines were anything but controversial.