Jim Beckwourth: The Mountain Man Who Became a Legend of the American West
Few figures in the history of the American West lived a life quite like Jim Beckwourth. Born into slavery around 1800, Beckwourth eventually became a fur trapper, trader, scout, trailblazer, and one...
Alexander Gardner: The Photographer Who Brought the Civil War Home
Until the year 1861, Americans had never seen photographs of their own country at war, or seen with their own eyes real-life images of the death and destruction when two armies engage in combat. The...
The Proclamation of 1763: Drawing a Line Across an Empire
Royal Proclamation of 1763, issued by King George III, October 7, 1763. Library and Archives Canada, e010778430. Public domain. When the French and Indian War ended in 1763, Great Britain emerged...
Remembering Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Civil War Confederate Spy
Mrs. Rose Greenhow portrait, circa 1855-1865. Brady-Handy photograph collection, Library of Congress The Civil War produced a war machine that had never been thought possible in the early decades of...
Remembering John Billington, Mayflower Passenger and Convicted Murderer
We tend not to think of our Pilgrim ancestors as violent people, and for the most part they weren’t. There were exceptions, however, in the case of John Billington is one of them. We share his...
Remembering Willem Kieft, Governor of the New Netherland Colony
The history of New York is, at root, the history of New Netherland, and the story of the industrious Dutch men and women who came to North America in the 1620s to establish a vibrant trading center...
ELIZABETH VAN LEW: Richmond’s Defiant Spymaster in the Heart of the Confederacy
In the divided world of Civil War Richmond, where loyalty to the Confederacy was expected and dissent was dangerous, one woman quietly built one of the most effective espionage networks of the entire...
Why Did Benedict Arnold Betray America?
Historians offer up many explanations, including that the Revolutionary War general may have had some self-esteem issues as a child and young man. Benedict Arnold was once a patriotic war hero valued...
September 23, 1806: The Lewis & Clark Expedition Returns to St. Louis
One of the watershed events in American history was the famed Lewis & Clark Expedition, a 2+ year exploration of the western territories acquired by the United States from France under the terms...
Remembering Silas Deane, Founding Father
As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, we also celebrate the courage shown by our Founding Fathers in taking the giant step of declaring our country’s...
