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Print depicting the USS Olympia firing on the Spanish fleet during the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.

Top Ten Origins: Puerto Rico and the United States

… 2018, President Donald Trump made a set of disparaging comments about Puerto Rico. They underscored just how little … fact, Puerto Ricans are Americans—making our relations not foreign, but familiar or even familial. There are 3.4 … Obama became the first sitting United States president to visit Puerto Rico since President Kennedy’s trip in 1961. …
In the 2020 presidential election (held using 2010 census data) Joe Biden received 306 (●) and Donald Trump 232 (●) of the total 538 electoral votes. In Maine (upper-right) and Nebraska (center), the small circled numbers indicate congressional districts. These are the only two states to use a district method for some of their allocated electors, instead of a complete winner-takes-all.

Arguing the Electoral College: Pro

… An institution created generations before any of us were born in a  nation entirely unlike our … whose members can deliberately and calmly assess the outcome of an election and judge its impact upon the public … in Washington, D.C., was co-founder of the History News Service. He is most recently the editor of A Century of …
Taxation without Representation, Suffrage Collection.

Death, Taxes, and the American Founders

… property rights versus the democratic ethos, and the need for savings versus the need for resources for the common good.  For many of today's issues — such as Internet … that establishing a small group of families with seemingly unlimited wealth, social privilege, and political power …
In order, India’s Indira Gandhi, Pakistan’s Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and Bangladesh’s Mujibur Rahman

After Midnight

Review of Midnight’s Descendants: A History of South Asia Since Partition, by John Keay (New York: Basic Books, 2014)
… of mangroves the book’s main character Saleem rediscovers forgotten memories of his past, of India’s early years of … of waterways serves as a metaphor for the subcontinent’s complicated post-colonial coming of age. Favoring academic … Calcutta, and Karachi far beyond their capacity. Keay points out that India enjoyed certain immediate advantages …
A Jewish menorah, which is used during Hanukkah.

How Hanukkah Became the Jewish Christmas

… by stampeding to the shopping mall. It’s also a chance for purists to ruin the fun by insisting that Hanukkah has … been a minor Jewish festival. Yet this holiday — which commemorates the successful Israelite revolt in the second … including the newly secularized Christmas. “Santa Claus visited the East Side last night,” the New York Tribune …
A Nuclear Power Plant in the Untied Kingdom against a blue sky.

How Green Is the Atom?

The Past–and Future–of Nuclear Energy in the United States
… industry representatives, but many environmentalists have come to see nuclear power as key to end world dependence on … the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy ( ADVANCE ) Act to ensure “clean and … to the nuclear industry in subsidies, tax breaks, and unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees. Taking advantage …

Are Women People? The Equal Rights Amendment Then and Now

… victory signals that the ERA has a renewed chance to become the 28 th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. To be … must be approved by Congress and then sent to the states for ratification by a two-thirds majority, or 38 states. … rights activists are hopeful that, if nothing else, the latest interest in the ERA will spark discussion and perhaps …

The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse, Then and Now

… John Roberts and President George W. Bush after a mass held for the opening session of the U.S. Supreme Court in … changing sexual mores since the 1960s. Occasionally, commentators have referred to an insular institutional … set up in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during Pope Francis’s visit in 2013 ( right ). Bringing in the Inquisition Another …

All Politics is Local: Understanding Boko Haram

… government. First Lady Michelle Obama making a plea for the return of the Chibok girls, 2014 “[We] need . . . to … The consensus among many academics, journalists, and commentators is that Boko Haram is an Islamist organization … from Mali, North Africa, Egypt, and the Saharan oases visited the region of West and Central Africa known as …
Diocletian's Camp in Palmyra

Understanding the Middle East

… and policymakers who seem unable to offer sound strategies for the Mideast. In this episode, hosts Leticia Wiggins and … Source ) Check out a lesson plan based on this article: Foreign Policy and the 3 Branches of Government ,  Syrian … and we could take it back to a number of starting points or first articulators, whether it's Samuel Huntington …
El 5 de julio por S. Davies, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

What’s Really At Stake in the Venezuelan Election

… election in its history. It’s a critical election because for the first time Venezuelans will vote to recall — or not … will be no grounds for the United States to reject its outcome. Both U.S. presidential candidates have made … Cuba’s Fidel Castro “raised serious questions about his commitment to leading a truly democratic country.” Of …

Public Debt, Private Wealth: A History of Central Banks

… roughly equaled the size of the entire American economy for the first time since World War II. This dubious … in order to separate it from the scandalous collapse of a commercial bank that had strong financial links to the king. … private banks, often after having received the assurance of unlimited credit facilities from the U.S. Federal Reserve …
A view of Cinicinnati in 1841. The waterways that brought cholera to the city feature prominently in this depiction.

Pandemic Redux: Revisiting Cincinnati’s 1849 Cholera in the Age of COVID-19

… December 25, 1848, brought an unwelcome gift to the Queen City. That Christmas Day, a dying man … pandemic reached Cincinnati 17 years earlier, saw no “cause for apprehension or anxiety … or any reason to suppose that … “Cincinnati is the city of pigs,” wrote English visitor Isabella Lucy Bird. “[S]wine lean, gaunt, and …
Cover of Where Have All the Soldiers Gone: The Transformation of Modern Europe by Jeff Sheehan.

How the Mighty European Military State has Fallen

Review of Where Have All the Soldiers Gone: The Transformation of Modern Europe, by Jeff Sheehan (Illustrated. 284 pp. Houghton Mifflin Company)
… questions are often dictated by present-day concerns. For Jeff Sheehan of Stanford University and his … European history that question is how did it come to pass that Europeans would differ so strongly from … attitudes toward standing armies and warfare, without coming down on one side or the other. Some Americans may …
Image of T2 Atomic Demolition Munition from the 1950s.

The Test-Ban Treaty and the Cold War’s Lessons

… When U.S. senators voted to reject the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, they took a giant step … peace, they allowed partisan rancor and atomic fears to forestall real progress. Even in the Cold War’s darkest … sufficient to deter a Soviet strike, but also argued that unlimited arms racing would jeopardize world peace and …

South Africa: Twenty-Five Years Since Apartheid

… National Congress (ANC) had been lifted, and negotiations for a new constitution had commenced. While political violence between the ANC and … has fueled commentary in the United States. In August, Fox News host Tucker Carlson argued against land expropriation …
Reinforcing Omaha Beach with men and equipment

Remembering D-Day: 10 Important Facts to Know

… Invasion (PDF File) (June 6, 1944) was the supreme joint effort of the Western Allies in Europe in World War II and … thousand casualties on the first day of the invasion. To commemorate the battle, Origins offers ten of the most … celebrations commemorating the invasions draw thousands of visitors. Heads of state from the United States, the United …
A group of boys at Chirec International School in India playing Cricket, 2015.

Cricket without Boundaries: The Story of a Global Game

… advanced to the semifinals of the Men’s Cricket World Cup for the first time, winning a stunning victory over the 2021 … time that the United States hosted an international cricket competition. In fact, the first international cricket game … racially mixed teams from competing abroad and required visiting international teams to be composed of only white …

The Human Use of Human Beings: A Brief History of Suicide Bombing

… 9/11, reveals a great deal about the phenomenon we have come to know as suicide bombing. First, a radical left-wing … fanatics. Second, the bomber detonated his explosives before he had the opportunity to enter the embassy complex. This shows that individual initiative and …
First Cabinet of President Barack Obama in the White House East Room.

The Distant Horizon of a President

… to show indiscipline by way of embarrassing leaks; and foreign leaders from Nicolas Sarkozy to Vladimir Putin to … cautious, thoughtful Obama was just plain weak, or worse: incompetent. Well, health care legislation has passed, the … that the moment is ripe for a win), content to lose a few points while reformulating the game itself over the long …
President George Bush signing deregulation papers with gas company employees looking on

Texas, Enron, and Energy Monopolies

… least some of the blame can go to the now-disgraced energy company, Enron, and its misuse of long-held American … slight of hand that ruined the company in 2001. But before that point, both Ken Lay and Enron were at the vanguard … Bill 7 on June 18, 1999. Noting that Texas was just the latest state to push for deregulation, one Enron Business …
The National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

With God on Our Side

… asserted his belief in America’s divine mission. Even before he became president he proclaimed that “our nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history to be a model to the world.” This … University of Nebraska at Omaha and writes for the History News Service. …

The Long, Long Struggle for Women's Rights in Afghanistan

… astonishing and repressive law that would make it illegal for women of the Shi'i minority (approximately 10 percent of … and I were fortunate enough to be granted permission to visit northern Afghanistan. We were an unlikely group to be … had very recently joined forces with the celebrated Tajik commander Ahmad Shah Massoud to establish the "Northern …