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History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Roundup Top 10!


Pop Culture Roundup: This Week

This week ... JFK Jr., Matt Damon saves ancient China, the artist who challenged Hitler, Ken Burns's new documentary, and lots more!


Crazy, Fascinating & Horrifying: Latest Edition

This Edition: NRA, Hillary, Mussolini, French Kissing, beer, and lots more.


Stunning Facts You Don’t Want to Miss

This Edition: racism, women in power, crime myths, veeps, and more!


The Terrorist Past Has a Message for the Terrorist Present

by Max Boot

History suggests that Europe’s current wave of terror can be ameliorated, if not entirely stopped.


In the Information Age, why do Americans ignore facts during elections?

by James W. Cortada

When looking at the historical record of how Americans used information over the past two hundred years, the area in which they most did not use hard facts involved elections.


Polls show evangelicals support Trump. But the term ‘evangelical’ has become meaningless.

by Thomas S. Kidd

Early evangelical leaders such as George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards would be utterly perplexed by the way we use the word “evangelical.”


How much have the Olympics really changed since ancient times?

by Jason König

Most people probably have a sense of how the ancient games formed a template for the modern Olympics, but when you dig into the detail of the ancient sources you start to see that things are not so simple.


A Tale of Two Conventions

by Jill Lepore

The spectacles in Cleveland and Philadelphia both came down to a question as old as the Republic: who are the people and who speaks for them?


Hillary Clinton: Victim of Her Own Success

by Ellen Fitzpatrick

She’s a great fund-raiser and a decisive leader. Why are these suddenly negatives?


Why Countries Never Thrive Without Activist Government Investment

by William Berkson

History shows that economies have never grown through minimizing government involvement in the economy.


Tim LaHaye's sex-ed legacy

by Jonathan Zimmerman

Before he wrote novels about the apocalypse, he and his wife opened right-wing Christian married couples’ eyes.


On Trade, Our Choices Aren’t Only Xenophobic Nationalism Or Neoliberal Globalization

by Leon Fink

Along with immigration, “free trade” is now the foremost symbol of a supposed either/or choice between globalism and nationalism.


Trump Versus Hitler: What We Can Learn From Weimar Germany

by Nathan Stoltzfus

The US is not facing a ‘Weimar Moment’ as the Germans did when they first elected Hitler, but the comparisons between the Fuhrer and Trump warrant thought.