Historians/History

• 
• 5/24/2020
  

  The Lynching of David Wyatt

  by Greg Bailey

  Lynching and mob terrorism against African Americans have never been a strictly southern phenomenon as a bloody incident from southern Illinois's histrory reveals. 

• 
• 5/24/2020
  

  A Memorial Day Lament for Capt. Wilfred Owen, Sgt. Joyce Kilmer, and the Needless Dead of Foolish Wars

  by Walter G. Moss

  The horrific scale of slaughter in the first World War can be understood, ironically, through the tragedy of a single lost life. Walter Moss considers the deaths of two poets in France.

• 
• 5/17/2020
  

  What the New Evidence on Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust Means

  by Rafael Medoff

  In the end, whatever their respective reasons, the Pope and the president both opted to look away from the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time.

• 
• 5/17/2020
  

  The Unfulfilled Potential of Progressive Democracy after World War II

  by Isser Woloch

  After the military defeat of Nazism, the governments of Britain, France and the United States made uneven and incomplete progress to remake their societies along more egalitarian lines, but their efforts should be seen as part of an international trend.

• 
• 5/10/2020
  

  Are We Repeating Some Chapter of World History?

  by Peter N. Stearns

  Did I hear some smart aleck student mumble something about Santayana?

• 
• 5/10/2020
  

  V-E Day Must Inspire Our Fight against Hunger and Pandemic

  by William Lambers

  The Greatest Generation won a world war and fed the hungry. We need that same spirit today as we face the Coronavirus menace and a world hunger crisis.   

• 
• 5/10/2020
  

  60 Years Ago, West Virginia Helped Make JFK President

  by Robert Rupp

  JFK's diligent campaigning in West Virginian in 1960 overcame the state's suspicion of his Catholic faith and later put Appalachia on the nation's policy agenda.

• 
• 5/10/2020
  

  Yes, John Wilkes Booth did Speak Those Notorious Words At Lincoln's Last Speech

  by Ken Lawrence

  There is ample evidence Booth declared his intention--complete with racist invective-- to kill Lincoln after hearing the President state his willingness to make black Union soldiers citizens. The quote helps keep Booth's motives in focus for students of history.

• 
• 5/10/2020
  

  Turn out the Lights: When the Last American Diplomats Fled China

  by Joe Renouard

  The U.S. diplomats who left China in 1949 left oral histories that are now archived at the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training. Their stories warning how how misunderstandings, misplaced hopes, and missed opportunities can poison relations between great powers.

• 
• 5/8/2020
  

  How Americans Experienced V-E Day, at Home and in Service

  by Fred Zilian

  The anniversary of V-E Day in 1945 is an occasion to place ourselves in the everyday lives of Americans at home and on the front lines.

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  Lessons on Isolation and Humanity in a Family's Letters from Hiding

  by Daphne Geismar

  A virus doesn’t discriminate. But our social structures, systemic biases, and policy choices have made some populations particularly vulnerable. This pandemic has changed us. We must make changes so this tragedy, like the Holocaust, isn’t repeated.

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  "Western Civ" Was Not a Late Invention

  by Stanley Kurtz

  America’s colleges taught Western civilization for centuries before the curricular disruptions of the 1960s, and the topic’s appeal was trans-partisan.

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  50 Years After Kent State: Four Deaths Shocked a Nation and Thrust Me into Student Activism

  by James Thornton Harris

  An HNN Contributing Editor reflects on how the Kent State killings pushed him to student activism and the legacy of protest fifty years later. 

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  Healing And Reconciling History 100 Years After the Elaine Race Massacre

  by J. Chester Johnson

  The author's realization that his beloved grandfather had participated in a racist massacre in Elaine, Arkansas led him to an unlikely journey of reconciliation with a descendent of one of the victims of that campaign of terror, and an understanding of the need for honesty about how heritage can excuse racism.

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  The Second Battle of Gettysburg: Eisenhower’s Fight with the 1918 Flu Pandemic

  by Jack M. Holl

  Dwight Eisenhower played a pivotal role in protecting the troops under his command and the civilians living around Camp Colt in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from the 1918 influenza pandemic. 

• 
• SOURCE: Ted.com
  4/25/2020
  

  The Dark History of IQ Tests (Video)

  by Stefan Dombrowski

  Since 1905, IQ testing has been put to constructive and highly destructive uses, as this Ted video explains.

• 
• 4/26/2020
  

  Teaching During a Pandemic – a Century Ago

  by John Marsh

  In letters the author's grandmother wrote to her beau in the Army between 1918 and 1919, the flu was a constant subject. 

• 
• 4/26/2020
  

  Historic Houses Turn to Technology Amid COVID-19 Closures

  by Hana Hancock

  Historic home sites have responded to the COVID crisis by developing online exhibits. More work remains to be done, and many cultural and historical institutions are in financial peril from the crisis, reports HNN's Social Media Editor. 

• 
• 4/19/2020
  

  Losing Women—and Women’s History—in Times of Crisis

  by Megan Kate Nelson

  Women and all of their visible and invisible labor are at the center of the COVID crisis, and they are finding their way into news coverage of the pandemic. The stories of women living and suffering and dying throughout history, however, have largely fallen by the wayside.

• 
• 4/19/2020
  

  I Didn't Remember the 1918 Influenza, but It Changed My Family

  by Vaughn Bornet

  At 102, Vaughn Bornet reflects on a childhood shaped by illness and the Great Depression.