Search Results

Displaying 169 - 192 of 1545
Women of the Association of Families of the Detained-Disappeared demonstrate in front of La Moneda Palace during the Pinochet military regime.

In Historical Truths, the Road to an Open Society

… In recent weeks the world has seen the passing of two of the most notorious autocrats of the late … were right-wing ideologues who cynically utilized fears of communism to crush opposition to their tyrannical regimes. … the Eastern Cape town of Cradock, including a popular teacher and community leader, Matthew Goniwe, disappeared while …
Rush hour traffic in Interstate 95 in Miami.

Finally, Too Many Cars

… starting to remake Maxwell Motors into his future Big Three company. In 1922, there was one registered passenger car or truck for every nine Americans. The country … State University, Ore., and a writer for the History News Service. … History News Service
New York stock market index from 1926 to 1939

Can the Global Crisis of the Nineties Lead to Another Great Depression?

… and the Nineties, and does history offer “lessons” from a comparison? Some of the similarities are certainly … but, fortunately, the present is not the same as the past. History cannot simply “repeat itself.” One important … culture and politics, and is a writer for the History News Service. …
Black Friday shoppers in the morning at Walmart store in Durham, North Carolina.

Is Retailing’s Death Star Vulnerable After All?

… You think that Americans’ national pastime is baseball, football, or Nascar? You’re wrong. It’s … to Christmas, head over to the local Wal-Mart. The company’s promise of “everyday low prices” is music to the … standards as the country continues its shift to a service economy. A simple first step would be to pay …
Sir Winston Churchill in 1945.

Churchill on Iraq: “Living on an Ungrateful Volcano”

… to think that he can somehow escape the lessons that the past can teach us and that history will treat his … the Arab officials of Iraq’s British-backed King Feisal “incompetent.” He noted the gross over-expenditure of monies in … history at Yale University and writes for the History News Service. …
Logo of the Merida Initiative.

War on Drugs: What Won’t Work — Again

… are ruthlessly terrorizing Nuevo Laredo and other border communities. In the past, though, security-first strategies have typically … with the drug trade. Since 2000, the United States has poured several billion dollars into Plan Colombia, the … History News Service
Ronald Reagan toasting at a State Dinner during his presidency.

Behind the Reagan Myths, a Mediocre Presidency

… and temperamental moderate. He was inattentive and passive in cabinet and other meetings and didn’t work very … number of letters that prove he was no dummy. A historian’s complaint, however, is larger than chagrin at the number of … He squandered this opportunity and instead led in the opposite direction, toward economic and population expansion …
Drawing/wood engraving of the state capitol of Illinois at Springfield.

Can Illinois Again Lead by (Bad) Example?

… history may be to residents of the Land of Lincoln, it is a past that suggests ways to deal with the current mess.   One … John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and Charles Sumner, to the Senate. Occasionally quests for Senate … the honor. By the 19th century’s end, the U.S. Senate had become widely known, as it still is today, as a “millionaires …
Portrait of Galileo Galilei by Justus Sustermans

400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism

What lessons can be learned from the thought and actions of Galileo, who became the “Father of Modern Science”?
… continues to our day. Do these Church actions prove the incompatibility between science and religion? What lessons can be learned from the thought and actions of … astronomical observations, the physics of motion, biblical passages, and epistemological principles (e.g., the …
Labor Secretary Elaine Chao in 2005.

Written With the Blood of Miners

… New mine safety legislation has now been passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress and with the president’s signature will become law. While a new law represents a positive step for … Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977, came after the 1976 Letcher County coal mine disaster in Kentucky (26 dead miners). …
Vigil commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 1989 massacre

New Protests in China Won’t Be the Last

… marched in northeast China. Unfortunately, as in the past, the soundbites typically stressed just one sort of … a way to use history when trying to make sense of China’s complicated present. Another kind of continuity between 1989 … years ago, but we should also remember that some marchers carried portraits of the long dead Communist leader …
Rendering of the new National World War I Memorial in Washington DC

It’s Time for a National World War I Memorial

… nearly 117,000 perished during the war — 53, 402 in combat — and another 204,000 were wounded. Many believe that … the celebration of Armistice Day on Nov. 11. But with the passage of time these forms of memorialization grew to … has left the First World War without a clearly focused “site of memory.”   There is, however, an opportunity to make …
19th century engraving showing Wall Street from the corner of Broad Street.

The First Wall Street Bomb

… This past weekend marks the anniversary of what, until Tuesday, … an unknown enemy, one whom many Americans believed had committed an act of war. And, like the destruction of the … at Columbia University and a writer for the History News Service. She is writing a book on the 1920 Wall Street …
The logo of the United States Agency for International Development. It has been in use since 2004.

Foreign Assistance and Democratic Reform

… granted greater decision-making authority to local communities, and the Paraguayan government opened budget … seem to have learned from the mistakes of the past. In recent years, USAID has instituted sweeping reforms … the improved monitoring of polls that are essential prerequisites for free and fair elections. Third, foreign aid is …
The Chrysler Building in New York City.

The “Unimaginable” Has, in Fact, Often Been Imagined

… we have been imagining this for years, even decades. This past summer, New York and its World Trade Center were … and burned to the very bedrock is Miller’s apocalypse complete. In the paintings of Chesley Bonestell from the … of Chicago Press), a writer for the History News Service. …
Senator Barack Obama

Memorandum to Sen. Obama: How to Run

… to get voters registered. He realized that if he were to become the city’s first African American elected mayor he … your candidacy will be a constant. Take good notes from the past, Senator, as you go forth trying to make history. … Grand Rapids, Mich., and a writer for the History News Service. He is writing a book on one of Martin Luther King, …
Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis.

Apologizing for Slavery

… that has raged ever since. Apologizing for slavery has become such a controversial issue not only because few … and must never be forgotten. We should always reexamine the past and those institutions that shaped it, for better or … the History News Service. His most recent book is "Money Pitcher: The Tragedy of Indian Assimilation." …
Photo of a healthcare worker holding an elderly person's hand.

Ducking Out on Retiree Benefits

… With the passage of a Senate bill shoring up private pension plans, … on a mix of public and private pensions. Like it or not, company pensions are part of public policy. This struggle … of the Yale faculty, is a writer for the History News Service and the author of "For All These Rights: Business, …
Radio World's Fair in 1926.

“Black Tuesday” After 70 Years

… the words “The End” on a popular, long-running American comedy named “The Roaring Twenties: The New Era of Eternal Prosperity.” In his inaugural address less than twenty months before, Herbert Hoover had … last.”  Robert S. McElvaine, a writer for History News Service, is a professor of history at Millsaps College and …
The Warren Court (1953–1969).

Blending Empathy and Justice

… on the Supreme Court, appears before the Senate judiciary committee. Obama raised the subject when he identified “that … celebrated that same virtue at a ceremony honoring the service of retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.   Nixon and … that office, always had the humanity which was all-encompassing, the dedication to his family — his personal family, …
This iconic 1846 lithograph by Nathaniel Currier was entitled "The Destruction of Tea at Boston Harbor"; the phrase "Boston Tea Party" had not yet become standard. Contrary to Currier's depiction, few of the men dumping the tea were actually disguised as Native Americans.

Tea Parties Then and Now — A Crucial Difference

… capitals and Washington, D.C., to protest the federal income tax. As their name implies and their banners state, … tax revenue lost to smuggling.   So in May 1773 Parliament passed and King George III assented to the Tea Act, which … longer be taking a cut, colonists would actually be paying less for their tea than before. Nonetheless, thousands of …
Motorcycle and sidecar with an advertisement for the Popolo d'Italia newspaper.

A Media King Becomes Prime Minister (Again)

… The Italian media mogul, Italy’s richest man, is now the incoming prime minister. How could that not be worrisome for … States and rake-offs from private interests. Electoral laws passed recently provide for modest public financing of … in Fascist Italy" (1981) and a writer for the History News Service. …