HNN Turned 20 This Month! Revisit the First Edition

by HNN Staff

HNN Founder Rick Shenkman published the first issue of History News Network twenty years ago this week. In the two decades since, HNN has continued to carry out its mission of offering historical perspective on the news and giving a platform for historians to use their expertise to comment on new discoveries, current events, and public understanding of the past.

Thanks to the invaluable resource of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, you can check out that inaugural issue (most images are, sadly, lost).

I hope that this is a fun trip down memory lane for our readers who have been with HNN for the whole journey and for relative newcomers, myself included.

It is absolutely the case that HNN has endured and thrived because of the support of our readers. We are the leading site on the web putting news in historical perspective because of our audience and our contributors, who make HNN a destination for informed commentary, a forum for incisive discussion, and, we believe, an asset to the community of historians.

Our readers have also sustained HNN with financial support. Contributions from our readers are necessary to pay for our web hosting, staffing, media subscriptions, and other vital tools of our work. If you value HNN and want to see what we will do in the next 20 years, please consider making a contribution today.

PUTTING THE NEWS IN PERSPECTIVE

HNN FEATURE

WAS THIS MAN GAY?
The Question That Won't Go Away

Homophobia in Lincoln Studies?
Philip Nobile Reports

ASK MR. HISTORY
Who invented the gas tax?

BOOK REVIEW
Why Ike Ran

CNN's Pearl Harbor Mistake

Thomas Fleming Exposes Pearl Harbor Myths

The Jeffords Switch: Why Bushes Get Betrayed

Still Mad About Election 2000?

WEEK OF JUNE 10

HNN FEATURE W. Scott Thompson
Was Lincoln Gay?
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT Thomas Fleming
Pearl Harbor Hype
HNN COLUMN William Thompson
Do You Have to be a Democrat to like the Jeffords Switch?
GOTCHA! HNN Staff
CNN's Pearl Harbor Mistake
READY, AIM, FIRE! Philip Nobile
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Publish: Homophobia in Lincoln Studies?
POLITICS Bernard Weisberger
What History Tells Us Will Likely Happen to Those Giant Surpluses
POLITICS Walter Nugent
Reflections on Election 2000
HISTORIAN'S TAKE ON THE NEWS Rick Shenkman
Family Feud: Jeffords Switch
ASK MR. HISTORY HNN Staff
Who Dreamed Up the Gas Tax?
BOOK REVIEW Steven Wagner
William Pickett's Eisenhower Decides to Run

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