Author Archives
I have a PhD in United States History and I am a legal refugee. I run a history wiki called DailyHistory.org and the blog Dailyhistoryblog.com.
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Star Wars: why did the film make history?
From History Extra by Nicholas John Cull: There is a moment in the first Star Wars film when the mystic Obi Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness) detects across at great distance of space the destruction of a planet and remarks: “I felt a… Read More ›
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The Most Damaging Myths About Slavery, Debunked
From History by Yohuru Williams: Were U.S. slaves in any way responsible for their own misery? Were there any silver linings to forced bondage? These questions surface from time to time in the American cultural conversation, rekindling a longstanding debate… Read More ›
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My Secret Summer With Stalin’s Daughter
From Politico Magazine by Grace Kennan Warnecke: My father, the diplomat George F. Kennan, disliked the telephone. So when he called me in March 1967, I knew it was something important. At the time, I was 36 years old and… Read More ›
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The Founders Worried too, About Foreign Meddling in Our Elections
From History New Network by Jeanne Abrams author of First Ladies of the Republic: Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Dolley Madison and the Creation of an Iconic American Role (New York University Press, 2018): In December of 1787, leading American statesmen Thomas Jefferson… Read More ›
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How Vietnam War Protests Accelerated the Rise of the Christian Right
From Smithsonian.com by David Mislin: May of 1968, a high-profile trial began in Boston that dramatically illustrated a larger phenomenon fueling the rise of conservative Christianity in the United States. Five men had been charged with conspiracy for encouraging Americans… Read More ›
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A New Ensemble Highlights the Women (Almost) Written Out of Jazz History
From KQED.org by Claudia Escobar: In the early 1990s, the late trombonist-arranger Melba Liston lived with her three aunts in a stately, old home in Los Angeles’ West Adams neighborhood. Though she had recently suffered a stroke, she was in the… Read More ›
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The Second World War as refugee crisis
From OUP Blog by Megan Koreman author of The Expectation of Justice: France 1944-1946 and The Escape Line: How the Ordinary Heroes of Dutch-Paris Resisted the Nazi Occupation of Western Europe: On this, the 74th anniversary of the end of the Second World… Read More ›
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The Myth of the Roosevelt “Trustbusters”
From The New Republic by Robert D. Atkinson and Michael Lind: In the aftermath of the Great Recession, amid growing concerns about income inequality and wage stagnation, politicians and pundits on the left and right have blamed the problems of twenty-first-century America on a… Read More ›
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Who was the first pope?
Traditionally, in the Roman Catholic Church, St. Peter (formally Simon) is regarded as the first pope in spite of the fact that the word “pope” would not have been attributed to Peter himself. There are several separate, interwoven theological concepts… Read More ›
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How Climate Change Affected The Outcome Of A Roman War With The Goths
From Forbes by author Kristina Killgrove: While the emperor Valens’s Second Gothic War ended with the sack of Rome in 410 AD, the result of his First Gothic War is far less well known. Historians have assumed that the Goths… Read More ›
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When Did Jackie Robinson Integrate Baseball and Why Is It Important?
Jackie Robinson was the first African-American to play in major league baseball on April 15, 1947. He went 0 for 3. He reached base once, scoring a run in a Brooklyn Dodgers victory. As a statistical line it was not… Read More ›
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What was the Second Great Awakening?
The Second Great Awakening was a religious revival that spread across the United States from 1790s to 1830s. American religious leaders were deeply concerned by low church attendance; only about 10% of the white population was going to church. These… Read More ›
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Learning about the First World War through German eyes
From OUP Blog by Jonathon Boff author of Haig’s Enemy: Crown Prince Rupprecht and the Germany’s War on the Western Front: Thanks to the ongoing centenary commemorations, interest in the First World War has never been higher. Whether it… Read More ›
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How the crisis of the 1930s made the Catholic Church modern
From Aeon by James Chappel author of Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church (Harvard UP, 2018) The 20th century is littered with failed global experiments. The British Empire roared into the century with the wind at… Read More ›
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Andrew Jackson’s Love Letters
From Nursing Clio by Melissa J. Gismondi: In our era of political “bromances” between leaders who value aggression and belittle sensitivity, it’s easy to forget that expectations as to how men should interact with other men are always changing…. Read More ›
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Why George Washington rejected a military parade in his honor
From The Washington Post by Linda M. Chervinsky author of The President’s Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution: Washington, the first in the pantheon of American military heroes to become president, refused pomp and circumstance as the… Read More ›
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The New Orleans Streetcar Protests of 1867
From We’re History by John Bardes: When did America desegregate public transportation? Most people would probably answer 1955, when Rosa Parks’s refusal to surrender her seat ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But the story begins at least 88 years before… Read More ›
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10 surprising facts about William the Conqueror and the Norman conquest
From History Extra by Marc Morris author of William I: England’s Conqueror (Penguin Books, 2016) 1. No one at the time called William ‘the Conqueror’ The earliest recorded use of that nickname occurs in the 1120s, and it didn’t really… Read More ›
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The April Round Up of the Daily History Reader
In case you missed any of them, here are all of the articles we highlighted in April. Why Did American Colonists Become United Against England? The untold story of ordinary black southerners’ litigation during the Jim Crow eraHow Did Easter Become an… Read More ›
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How Did Early Judicial Systems Evolve?
We think today that an effective judicial system is necessary for any society to function and provide justice to its citizens. The concept of justice, in fact, has evolved from very early written history, showing some similarities early on with… Read More ›
