History

on July 12, 2020 at 1:07 pm

Photos: Egypt reopens ancient Step Pyramid after renovations. The 4,700-year-old Step Pyramid of Djoser is reopened after 14 year-long restoration ...

by History.com Editors on July 10, 2020 at 4:43 pm

Only July 10, 2015, Texas State Trooper Brian Encinia pulls over a 28-year-old Black woman, Sandra Bland, for failing to signal a lane change. After a heated encounter, he arrests her and takes her […]

by Sarah Pruitt on July 10, 2020 at 2:41 pm

In the early morning hours of August 1, 1943, a total of 177 B-24 Liberator bombers took off from Allied airfields near Benghazi, Libya, heading northeast over the Mediterranean Sea with more than […]

by History.com Editors on July 10, 2020 at 2:37 pm

Outraged and saddened after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who killed a Black teenager in 2012, Oakland, California resident Alicia Garza posts a message on Facebook on July […]

by Christopher Klein on July 9, 2020 at 1:38 pm

Nearly 150 years before the advent of texts, tweets and e-mail, President Abraham Lincoln became the first “wired president” by embracing the original electronic messaging […]

by Christopher Klein on July 8, 2020 at 7:35 pm

Alexander Hamilton abhorred slavery and at a few points in his life worked to help limit it. But any moral objections he held were tempered by his social and political ambitions. Throughout his […]

by History.com Editors on July 8, 2020 at 4:13 pm

Niagara Movement members begin meeting on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. This all-African American group of scholars, lawyers and businessmen came together for three days to create what […]

by Becky Little on July 7, 2020 at 8:11 pm

The influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919 was a profoundly traumatic event. It killed some 50 million people and infected up to a third of the world’s population. Unlike most flu strains, this […]

on July 7, 2020 at 5:28 pm

The Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969 was one of the most astonishing achievements in human history. That day, an estimated 530 million TV viewers watched U.S. astronauts Neil Armstrong and ...

by Dave Roos on July 7, 2020 at 5:13 pm

Christopher Columbus has long been exalted as a heroic figure in American history: the first explorer to establish a European presence in the New World. Americans have celebrated his arrival as […]

on July 7, 2020 at 5:13 pm

Egyptian pyramids. In Egypt, kings and queens, called Pharaohs, were buried in huge square-bottomed pyramids built of stone.They were usually built to be used as tombs for Pharaohs. The ancient […]

on July 7, 2020 at 4:52 pm

The Eagle made a risky landing in a shallow moon crater named the Sea of Tranquility. (Most people watching the landing on TV didn’t know that the Eagle had only 20 seconds of landing fuel left […]

on July 7, 2020 at 4:45 pm

The Giza Pyramids, built to endure an eternity, have done just that. The monumental tombs are relics of Egypt's Old Kingdom era and were constructed some 4,500 years ago. Egypt's pharaohs expected ...

on July 7, 2020 at 4:31 pm

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon.Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin formed the American crew that landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle on […]

on July 7, 2020 at 4:02 pm

The Egyptian pyramids are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt.As of November 2008, sources cite either 118 or 138 as the number of identified Egyptian pyramids. Most were built […]

on July 7, 2020 at 3:19 pm

The pyramids of Giza were royal tombs built for three different pharaohs. The northernmost and oldest pyramid of the group was built for Khufu (Greek: Cheops), the second king of the 4th dynasty. […]

by Erin Blakemore on July 7, 2020 at 3:16 pm

During the Great Depression, thousands of unemployed men picked up saws and axes and headed to the woods to serve in the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program that employed about 3 million […]

on July 7, 2020 at 2:50 pm

History >> Ancient Egypt The Ancient Egyptian pyramids are some of the most impressive structures built by humans in ancient times. Many of the pyramids still survive today for us to see and […]

on July 7, 2020 at 2:43 pm

At 10:56 p.m. EDT Neil Armstrong is ready to plant the first human foot on another world. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbs down the ladder and proclaims: "That's […]

on July 7, 2020 at 2:07 pm

The Apollo 11 mission occurred eight years after President John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) announced a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. Apollo 17, the final manned ...

on July 7, 2020 at 1:10 pm

The most famous pyramids are the Egyptian — huge structures built of brick or stone, some of which are among the world's largest constructions. They are shaped as a reference to the rays of the […]

on July 7, 2020 at 11:16 am

A particular bugbear in the Fox News documentary was a poll claiming that 20% of Americans believed the moon landing was faked. Launius says that polls tend to put the figure at between 4% and 5% ...

on July 7, 2020 at 8:02 am

Pyramids are also found south of Egypt in the Nubian kingdom of Meroe, in the cities of the Maya throughout Central and South America, and, in a variation on the form, in China. Egyptian Pyramids […]

on July 7, 2020 at 3:02 am

A Moon landing is the arrival of a spacecraft on the surface of the Moon.This includes both crewed and robotic missions. The first human-made object to touch the Moon was the Soviet Union's Luna 2, […]

on July 6, 2020 at 6:33 pm

It’s taking a craft from orbit to landing on the surface of the moon that’s the real challenge. Because there is a delay in communications between Earth and the moon, the humans back home […]

on July 6, 2020 at 2:06 am

The ancient pyramids of Egypt are some of the oldest and most magnificent monuments of antiquity. Of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Great Pyramid at Giza is the only one left standing.

on July 6, 2020 at 1:23 am

Egyptian Pyramids: History and Interesting Facts Egyptian pyramids were made around the time when Egypt was a wealthy country with a fast rate of acquisition of knowledge. Although some of the oldest […]

by History.com Editors on June 30, 2020 at 6:28 pm

On the morning of July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, New Guinea, on one of the last legs in their historic attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Their next […]

by Patrick J. Kiger on June 30, 2020 at 1:42 pm

After Vice President Aaron Burr killed Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, Hamilton’s widow, Elizabeth Schuyler “Eliza” Hamilton, had to find a way to go on […]

by Becky Little on June 29, 2020 at 7:12 pm

Slavery was a dominant feature of the antebellum South, but it was also pervasive in the pre-Civil War North—the New England states of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut […]

by Yohuru Williams on June 29, 2020 at 2:58 pm

With its soaring rhetoric about all men being “created equal,” the Declaration of Independence gave powerful voice to the values behind the American Revolution. Critics, however, saw a […]

by Christopher Klein on June 25, 2020 at 6:38 pm

By February 1945, it was increasingly clear that not only would Adolf Hitler's Third Reich fail to last a millennium as he had hoped; it wouldn’t even survive the spring. With the end of World […]

by Sarah Pruitt on June 25, 2020 at 2:35 pm

As the presidential election of 1800 approached, Americans were more divided than ever before. The incumbent President John Adams faced off against Vice President Thomas Jefferson, the former […]

by History.com Editors on June 23, 2020 at 7:36 pm

June 26, 2015 marks a major milestone for civil rights in the United States, as the Supreme Court announces its decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. By one vote, the court rules that same-sex marriage […]

by Thad Morgan on June 23, 2020 at 3:09 pm

For centuries, Black Americans have used music as a powerful tool. In the antebellum South, enslaved people sang spirituals to covertly plan their escape to freedom. Poems were put to music and […]

by Greg Daugherty on June 23, 2020 at 1:59 pm

For four days in November-December 1943, as World War II raged, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin met in secret in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Code named Eureka, the […]

by Dave Roos on June 22, 2020 at 7:43 pm

The invention of the modern mumps vaccine is the stuff of medical textbook legend. In 1963, a star researcher at the pharmaceutical company Merck took a swab of his own daughter’s throat to […]

by History.com Editors on June 22, 2020 at 4:09 pm

On the morning of June 27, 2015, activists posing as joggers signal to one of their comrades that the police have momentarily turned their attention away from the flagpole outside the South Carolina […]

by Becky Little on June 17, 2020 at 2:59 pm

Leading up to the American Revolution, one of the colonists’ chief complaints about the British Empire was that it imposed “taxation without representation”—a slogan that […]

by Colette Coleman on June 17, 2020 at 2:31 pm

On August 21, 1831, enslaved Virginian Nat Turner led a bloody revolt, which changed the course of American history. The uprising in Southampton County led to the killing of an estimated 55 white […]

by Becky Little on June 17, 2020 at 1:21 am

In June of 1941, Americans read about an extraordinary British mission into Nazi-occupied France. Newspapers, including the Baltimore Sun and New York Post, detailed how the British parachuted into […]

by Alexis Clark on June 16, 2020 at 3:23 pm

Among the earliest stewards of the nation’s national parks were soldiers from segregated black regiments. Starting in the 1890s, the Buffalo Soldiers, who had earned valor fighting in the […]

by Dave Roos on June 12, 2020 at 7:34 pm

In desperate times, the enemy of your enemy becomes your friend. During World War II, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union would never have been three-way allies had they not shared […]

by Sarah Pruitt on June 11, 2020 at 4:08 pm

During the hot, humid summer of 1793, thousands of Philadelphians got horribly sick, suffering from fevers and chills, jaundiced skin, stomach pains and vomit tinged black with blood. By the end of […]

by History.com Editors on June 10, 2020 at 4:20 pm

A dramatic battle in the Tennessee House of Representatives ends with the state ratifying the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution on August 18, 1920. After decades of struggle and […]

by History.com Editors on June 10, 2020 at 4:11 pm

On July 20, 1865, a Frenchman named Pierre Lallement arrives in the United States, carrying the plans and components for the first modern bicycle. Lallement constructed and patented the first bicycle […]

by History.com Editors on June 10, 2020 at 4:04 pm

Hearing arguments in the case of the Zong, a slave ship, the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in London states that a massacre of African slaves “was the same as if Horses had been […]

by History.com Editors on June 10, 2020 at 4:00 pm

On June 15, 2006, on the remote island of Spitsbergen halfway between mainland Norway and the North Pole, the prime ministers of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland lay the ceremonial first […]

by History.com Editors on June 10, 2020 at 3:56 pm

Robert Falcon Scott’s ship, the Terra Nova, sets sail from Cardiff, Wales on June 15, 1910, bound for Antarctica. Though it will succeed in reaching its objective, the expedition will end in […]

by History.com Editors on June 8, 2020 at 4:58 pm

On the afternoon of March 15, 2019, a gunman attacked two different mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand during Friday Prayer, killing 51, wounding 40, and deeply scarring a nation that had, until […]

by History.com Editors on June 8, 2020 at 4:21 pm

On the evening of June 17, 2015, a mass shooter took the lives of nine African American people at a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The […]

by Becky Little on June 5, 2020 at 9:31 pm

The First and Second Amendments get a lot of attention, but the Third rarely comes up in court. It reads, in full: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the […]

by Alexis Clark on June 5, 2020 at 5:31 pm

In 1943, the United States, heavily engaged in the fight against Nazism and fascism in World War II, was also dealing with a serious conflict at home. Black Americans across the country faced […]

by Natasha Frost on June 5, 2020 at 2:10 pm

In the final months of World War II, as Nazi Germany began to crumble, capturing Berlin had become the ultimate political and military prize. For the Allies—Britain, the United States and the […]

by Joseph A. Williams on June 4, 2020 at 8:13 pm

One of the Allies' greatest fears during World War II was that Adolf Hitler and his Nazi forces would unleash so-called Wunderwaffen, or “wonder weapons.” Some of the rumored weapons were […]

on June 3, 2020 at 10:04 pm

From May 2 to May 5, 1963, thousands of children left their schools in Birmingham, Alabama, to march for civil rights. Police officers responded by using water cannons and dogs to attack and then […]

by Dave Roos on June 3, 2020 at 4:25 pm

The Insurrection Act gives U.S. presidents the authority to deploy active duty military to maintain or restore peace in times of crisis. The Insurrection Act was invoked numerous times in the 20th […]

by History.com Editors on June 2, 2020 at 8:56 pm

On June 3, 1943, a group of U.S. sailors marches through downtown Los Angeles, carrying clubs and other makeshift weapons and attacking anyone wearing a “zoot suit”—the baggy wool […]

by Sarah Pruitt on June 1, 2020 at 10:56 pm

In the summer of 1967, simmering tensions between the police and the black community in Detroit, Michigan exploded into five chaotic days of looting, arson and violence. In one of the worst riots in […]

by Joseph Bennington-Castro on June 1, 2020 at 5:35 pm

By the end of 1984, AIDS had already ravaged the United States for a few years, affecting at least 7,700 people and killing more than 3,500. Scientists had identified the cause of […]

by History.com Editors on June 1, 2020 at 4:44 pm

Beginning on the night of May 31, 1921, thousands of white citizens in Tulsa, Oklahoma descended on the city’s predominantly black Greenwood District, burning homes and businesses to the ground […]

by Dave Roos on May 28, 2020 at 4:37 pm

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in as president in 1933, he took the helm of a United States brought to its knees by the Great Depression. With unemployment as high as 25 percent, millions were […]

by Joseph A. Williams on May 28, 2020 at 2:30 pm

Between 1764 and 1767 a mysterious creature called the Beast ravaged the rural region of Gévaudan, France. About 100 men, women and children reportedly fell victim to La Bête du […]

by Becky Little on May 27, 2020 at 1:44 pm

One of the benefits of being a U.S. president is you get to work from home. Ever since John Adams moved into the White House in 1800, every subsequent president has gotten the chance to live in his […]

by Becky Little on May 26, 2020 at 4:22 pm

“Spanish flu” has been used to describe the flu pandemic of 1918 and 1919 and the name suggests the outbreak started in Spain. But the term is actually a misnomer and points to a key […]

by Jessica Pearce Rotondi on May 20, 2020 at 3:03 pm

“MIA” stands for missing in action, a term used to refer to members of the armed forces who have not returned from military service and whose whereabouts are unknown. Since ancient times, […]

by Natasha Frost on May 19, 2020 at 9:39 pm

In December 1940, three months after Japan, Germany and Italy signed their “Tripartite Pact” World War II alliance, a convoy of Japanese military leaders headed for Berlin to learn from […]

on May 19, 2020 at 8:02 pm

Ulysses Grant took an unconventional path to the White House, rising from a leather goods salesman to a heroic general in a matter of months.Continue reading

by Mario Livio on May 19, 2020 at 3:19 pm

Four centuries ago, the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei put his liberty and life on the line to convince the religious establishment that the Copernican model of the solar system—in which the […]

by Dave Roos on May 18, 2020 at 12:44 pm

People have been eating outside of the home for millennia, buying a quick snack from a street vendor or taking a travel break at a roadside inn for a bowl of stew and a pint of mead. In the West, […]

by Sarah Pruitt on May 14, 2020 at 8:17 pm

In the summer of 1945, as World War II drew to a close, the U.S. economy was poised on the edge of an uncertain future. Since President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s call in late 1940 for the United […]

by Patrick J. Kiger on May 14, 2020 at 4:09 pm

Western outlaw Billy the Kid met his demise at about 12:30 a.m. on July 14, 1881, when he went to his friend Pete Maxwell’s home in Fort Sumner, New Mexico in search of a slice of beef for a […]

by Elizabeth D. Samet on May 13, 2020 at 8:28 pm

In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant went to Washington, D.C., to receive his commission from Abraham Lincoln as lieutenant general in command of all the Union armies. After several years of frustration […]

by Dave Roos on May 13, 2020 at 4:51 pm

When George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775, America was fighting a war on two fronts: one for independence from the British, and a second for survival against smallpox. […]

by Christopher Klein on May 12, 2020 at 7:18 pm

It was the ultimate social-distancing experiment. On September 26, 1991, four men and four women in dark-blue spacesuits waved goodbye to friends, families and a bank of television cameras as they […]

by Dante A. Ciampaglia on May 12, 2020 at 6:14 pm

In the summer of 1965, support for the conflict in Vietnam eroded as President Lyndon B. Johnson’s advisors recommended sending hundreds of thousands of servicemen over the course of at least […]

by Jessica Pearce Rotondi on May 11, 2020 at 8:50 pm

You’ve heard of the Vietnam War, but what about the “secret war” in Laos? Over 16 million members of the Greatest Generation fought in World War II, but what about the 5.8 million […]

by History.com Editors on May 11, 2020 at 3:21 pm

On May 12, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt’s trip to San Francisco is captured on moving-picture film, making him one of the first presidents to have an official activity recorded in that […]

by Sarah Pruitt on May 8, 2020 at 1:00 pm

It’s one of the most iconic photos in American history. A woman in ragged clothing holds a baby as two more children huddle close, hiding their faces behind her shoulders. The mother squints […]

by Colin Bertram on May 8, 2020 at 12:49 pm

By the mid-1980s American farmers were facing economic hardships not seen since the Great Depression. Droughts in 1980 and 1983 had wrought devastation in the Corn Belt, Midwest States and Northeast. […]

by Christopher Klein on May 8, 2020 at 12:00 pm

Shortly before noon on May 6, 1884, Ulysses S. Grant entered the office of his Wall Street brokerage firm a wealthy man. Hours later, he exited a pauper. Thanks to a pyramid scheme operated by his […]

by History.com Editors on May 7, 2020 at 1:53 pm

In the early hours of May 9, 1970, a frazzled President Richard Nixon embarks upon what his Chief of Staff will describe as "the weirdest day so far" of his presidency. Preoccupied with the recent […]

by Becky Little on May 6, 2020 at 2:56 pm

The influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919 was the most deadly flu outbreak in history, killing up to 50 million people worldwide. In the United States, where it ultimately killed around 675,000 people, […]

by Elizabeth D. Samet on May 5, 2020 at 9:41 pm

Ulysses S. Grant, who graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1843, didn’t go there because he dreamed of being a soldier. The future Civil War general and two-term U.S. […]

by Becky Little on May 5, 2020 at 7:44 pm

On June 19, 1982, a Chinese American man named Vincent Chin went with friends to a strip club in Detroit to celebrate his upcoming wedding. That night, two white men who apparently thought Chin was […]

by Christopher Klein on May 5, 2020 at 1:08 pm

President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant didn’t meet often in person. But their mutual respect and trust grew deep over the final year of the Civil War as they together steered […]

by History.com Editors on May 4, 2020 at 7:09 pm

On May 4, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven’s ninth and final symphony debuts at Vienna’s Theater am Kärntnertor. Having lost his hearing years earlier, the celebrated composer nonetheless […]

by Christopher Klein on May 4, 2020 at 4:42 pm

Richard Nixon couldn’t sleep. Four days after the Kent State shootings, the president sat in the sitting room off the Lincoln Bedroom listening to a Rachmaninoff concerto on his record player. […]

by History.com Editors on April 30, 2020 at 8:41 pm

The following content is sponsored by Legacy Recordings. On May 1, 1975, Willie Nelson releases “Red Headed Stranger,” a concept album that would become the country music maverick’s […]

on April 14, 2020 at 3:45 pm

Just after 9/11, President George W. Bush sent a message of perseverance to all Americans, with a perfect pitch.Continue reading

on April 14, 2020 at 3:44 pm

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in America to earn a medical degree, and used her talents to support Union troops on the frontlines of the Civil War. But she was never given the credit she […]

on April 14, 2020 at 3:32 pm

The census has been around since the beginning of the United States, which meant the entire population had to be counted by hand. Until one inventor saw a better way forward.Continue reading

on April 14, 2020 at 1:17 pm

The Easter Egg Roll is an annual White House tradition dating back over a century, but how did presidents start hosting this egg racing ritual?Continue reading

by History.com Editors on April 13, 2020 at 4:58 pm

On November 4, 2016, the Paris Agreement comes into effect. A sweeping international pledge to dramatically reduce carbon emissions, the Agreement remains a potential turning point in the […]

by History.com Editors on April 7, 2020 at 7:31 pm

On December 11, 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, the United Nations adopts a new treaty for the purpose of limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on […]

by History.com Editors on April 7, 2020 at 6:52 pm

On December 17, 1963, one of the first major pieces of environmental legislation in the United States becomes law. The Clean Air Act empowers federal and state agencies to research and regulate air […]

by History.com Editors on April 7, 2020 at 6:43 pm

The Clean Water Act becomes law on October 18, 1972. After centuries of reckless treatment of American rivers, streams, lakes and bays, the landmark act institutes strict regulations on pollution and […]

by History.com Editors on April 7, 2020 at 6:33 pm

On December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signs the Endangered Species Act into law. The act, which Nixon called for the previous year, is considered one of the most significant and influential […]

by History.com Editors on April 7, 2020 at 6:30 pm

In March of 1958, Dr. Charles David Keeling begins regularly measuring the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai'i. Over the ensuing years, his research […]

by History.com Editors on April 7, 2020 at 6:26 pm

On December 2, 1970, a new federal agency opens its doors. Created in response to the dawning realization that human activity can have major effects on the planet, the Environmental Protection Agency […]