American History
Potential Islamic State threats against Americans in Afghanistan are forcing the U.S. military to develop new ways to get evacuees to the airport in Kabul, a senior U.S. official said Saturday.
Thousands of Afghans rushed into Kabul’s main airport Monday, some so desperate to escape the Taliban that they held onto a military jet as it took off and plunged to their deaths. At least seven people died in the chaos, U.S. officials said, as America’s longest war ended with its enemy the victor.
Striking a defiant tone, President Joe Biden said Monday that he stands “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan as he acknowledged the “gut-wrenching” images coming out of the country after the swift Taliban takeover of the government.
A “racial healing and historical reckoning project” launched by Mayor Lori Lightfoot after she removed the city’s three statues of Christopher Columbus has stalled, and the statues remain in storage a year after they were wrenched from their pedestals.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday both marked the one-year anniversary of U.S. Rep. John Lewis’ death by urging Congress to honor the legacy of the civil rights icon by enacting laws to protect voting rights.
In the midst of a right-wing attack on creating a more inclusive education in the U.S., Illinois just became the first state to require Asian American history to be taught in public schools.
A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was hoisted away from its place of prominence and carted off to storage, years after its threatened removal became a rallying point for white supremacists and inspired their violent 2017 rally that left a woman dead and dozens injured.
It’s no secret that America is divided across partisan and racial lines. But a new, nationwide survey of white and Black Americans from the University of Illinois at Chicago illustrates just how deep some of those divisions are.
This Fourth of July holiday we look at a word that has had different meanings for different Americans: patriotism, and what it means to some members of the Black community.
Calling Donald H. Rumsfeld energetic was like calling the Pacific wide. When others would rest, he would run. While others sat, he stood. But try as he might, at the pinnacle of his career as defense secretary he could not outmaneuver the ruinous politics of the Iraq war.
Some of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions have become increasingly segregated in the last 30 years, underscoring racial inequalities that have led to poorer life outcomes in Black and brown neighborhoods, according to a study released Monday.
In 1921, Georgiana Rose Simpson became America’s first black woman to graduate with a Ph.D. How her trailblazing achievement is being honored at her alma mater through the new group GRO.
Parades, picnics and lessons in history were offered Saturday to commemorate Juneteenth in the U.S., a day that carried even more significance after Congress and President Joe Biden created a federal holiday to observe the end of slavery.
President Joe Biden signed a bill Thursday that was passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19th, as a federal holiday. Here’s a look at the holiday and its history.
Plus: Our Spotlight Politics team on the new law, Springfield summer session and more
Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the law Wednesday at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, where a rare copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by the country’s 16th president is currently on display.
The move by Florida’s state Board of Education was widely expected as a national debate intensifies about how race should be used as a lens in classrooms to examine the country’s tumultuous history.