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The young rockabilly star autographed each of our forearms.

Fifty years ago, the Equal Credit Act was an important step in affording women control of their own finances.

The Constitution is more than a legal code. It is also a framework for union and solidarity.

In the hundred years since his death, features of Woodrow Wilson’s philosophy have become central to international politics and American foreign policy.

Classic Essays from Our Archives

The Slave Who Sued for Freedom | March 1990, Vol 41, No 2

By Jon Swan

While the American Revolution was still being fought, Mum Bett declared that the new nation’s principle of liberty must extend to her, too. It took 80 years and a far-more-terrible war to confirm the rights that she had demanded.

mum bett

A Yankee Among The War Lords | October 1970, Vol 21, No 6

By Barbara W. Tuchman

First of the Three Parts from STILWELL THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA 1911-1945

American Heritage Logo

The Day The Civil War Ended | June/July 1978, Vol 29, No 4

By Bruce Catton

At the Gettysburg reunion fifty years after the battle, it was no longer blue and gray. Now it was all gray.

civil war reunion

"I Had Prayed to God That This Thing Was Fiction…" | February 1990, Vol 41, No 1

By William Wilson

He didn’t want the job, but felt he should do it. For the first time, the soldier who tracked down the My Lai story for the office of the inspector general in 1969 tells what it was like to do some of this era’s grimmest detective work.

my lai

Ike's Son Remembers George S. Patton Jr. | Summer 2012, Vol 62, No 2

By John D. Eisenhower

The author, who once served under General Patton and whose father, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was Patton's commanding officer, shares his memories of "Ol' Blood and Guts."

Gen. George Patton

Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other? | Fall 2008, Vol 58, No 5

By Annette Gordon-Reed

To call it loaded question does not begin to do justice to the matter, given America’s tortured racial history and its haunting legacy.

hemings jefferson

    Today in History

  • USS Constitution

    USS Constitution is launched in Boston Harbor. The 1794 Naval Act authorized its construction along with five other frigates, and the USS Constitution, nicknamed "Old Ironsides", served through the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. 

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  • Edison successfully tests incandescent light bulb

    Thomas Edison successfully tests his incandescent light bulb with a cotton carbonized filament. The light bulb would stay electrified for over 13 hours.

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  • Battle of Aachen

    American soldiers triumph at the Battle of Aachen following the surrender of 5,000 German soldiers. Aachen, along the Belgian and Dutch borders, is the first German city captured by the Americans.

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