Twenty-five influential films have been selected for the 2023 Library of Congress National Film Registry, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced in December. The films are selected each year for their cultural, historic, or aesthetic importance

IN DECEMBER, the American Battlefield Trust and the Daughters of the American Revolution unveiled the new exhibition American Revolution Experience at the DAR Museum in Washington, D.C. This longterm mounting of the exhibit will remain at DAR’s natio

FREDERICK PABST was captain of a Great Lakes steamer when Maria Best came aboard his ship and caught his attention. He started courting her, the daughter of the owner of Milwaukee’s Phillip Best Beer Company, and they married in 1862. It didn’t take

A bold new photographic project asks modern-day Americans to re-create portraits of their 19th-century ancestors in painstakingly accurate fashion. Award-winning British photographer Drew Gardner has spent nearly 20 years tracking down descendants of

As the president’s body was transported across the continent, Americans gathered in cities and towns, on prairies and hilltops, at train depots and along anonymous stretches of track, to say goodbye. Cowboys on the high plains removed their hats as t

For her coming-out party in 1959, Barbie modeled a black-and-white-striped one-piece bathing suit and cat-eye sunglasses, her now-iconic long blond hair pulled up in a ponytail. She was all set for sunning on Malibu Beach or a photo shoot with a glos

Action Comics #1, published by DC Comics is, “The most important comic book ever published,” according to leading comic book pricing authority, Overstreet. Why? It’s the first appearance of Superman, and many say, the book that started the Golden Age

historynet.com/cherokee-slave-revolt What happened today, yesterday—or any day you care to search. Test your historical acumen—every day! The gadgetry of war—new and old—effective, and not-so effective. Listen to daily selections from our archive of

UNION SOLDIER JOHN J. WILLIAMS IS KILLED ON THE BANKS OF THE RIO GRANDE DURING THE BATTLE OF PALMITO RANCH. RECOGNIZED AS THE LAST MAN TO DIE IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, HE WAS ONE OF AN ESTIMATED 700,000 MEN—ROUGHLY 2% OF THE U.S. POPULATION AT THE T

Saving Smalls’ S.C. Home Leaders for the National Trust for Historic Preservation are completing the purchase of the McKee-Smalls House from its current owners, Billy and Paul Keyserling. The property is best known as the home of Robert Smalls, who w

IN 1866, WISCONSIN PRINTER Christopher Sholes designed a machine to print page numbers in books and serial numbers on tickets. His partnership on that venture led to this June 23, 1868, patent for a Type-Writer, to print letters. The new device was c

On December 13, 2023, Larry Doby was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. It would have been his 100th birthday. Doby, an often-overlooked baseball pioneer integrated the American League with the 1947 Cleveland Indians and served hi

The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History By Laurence Jurdem Pegasus Books, 2023. $32 LAURENCE JURDEM sifts through the extensive correspondence of and between Theodore

On September 24, 1780, Benedict Arnold learned to his dismay that British spy Major John André had been captured while carrying a copy of Arnold’s plan to turn the Continental Army’s fort at West Point, N.Y, over to the British. Arnold and André had

John Hicks made it home well after midnight on that chilly December night in 1773. Not wanting to wake his wife—and thus incur her wrath—he quietly entered his house in Cambridge, Mass., gingerly removed his boots and silently crept up to bed. The ne

AMERICAN KIDS OF THE COLD WAR ERA were raised with the fear of nuclear attack. Anytime, anywhere, Russia could drop the bomb. “Duck and Cover” was the catch phrase drummed into their heads at school and on film screens. Get away from glass, hunker do

For more than a year, John Banks crisscrossed the country, exploring battlefields, historic houses, forts, and more. He rode on the back of an ATV with his “psychotic connection” in Mississippi, went under the spell of an amateur hypnotist at a U.S.

Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail is now a part of the National Park System, a change that will allow for more resources as organizers push to complete it. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) and National Park Service Director Chuck Sams announced in December the

IT’S ABOUT TIME we get to know Gerald Ford. We know his predecessor, Richard Nixon, who handed his vice president the presidency by resigning during the Watergate proceedings in 1974. We know the man who defeated him in the presidential election two

FLORENZ ZIEGFELD—the most famous showman of his time, and a genius of that great American art form, the publicity stunt—began his career with an animal act: “The Dancing Ducks of Denmark.” Actually, the ducks, like Ziegfeld, were Illinois natives, an

As any fan of Bond, James Bond, can tell you: spies wear tuxedos, drink well-shaken martinis, and know their way around a wine list. Is it any wonder they attract femme fatales with suggestive names? However, as beloved and enduring as the Bond mytho

This photograph shows participants and a crowd at the first inauguration of President Abraham Lincoln, at the U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., on March 4, 1861. Lincoln is standing under the wood canopy, at the front, midway between the left and cente

ON OCTOBER 5, 1869, just more than four years after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House and 34 years before the Wright Brothers took off, Watson Fell Quinby was granted this patent for a human “Flying Machine.” The contraption used two

President Theodore Roosevelt’s pince-nez glasses were always featured prominently in caricatures of him. These 1904 political pins capitalized on his signature eyewear, with one pair doubling its use as a frame to hold sepia celluloid images of Teddy

The year 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation. As part of the year-long celebration of the bench mark, the Georgia Trust and the University of Georgia Press partnered to publish the book Arch

IF YOU TRAVEL THROUGH Northeast Ohio, take the time to get off the turnpikes and interstates to travel through towns like Burton, Mesopotamia, or Hudson. You’ll notice that they, along with many other hamlets, have a decided New England feel to them

VISIT HISTORYNET.COM Ham White and Black Bart. You read that right: White and Black excelled at robbing stagecoaches. One trick, wait until the coach is struggling up a steep hill before you try to hold it up. By Daniel Seligman historynet.com/how-to