History Q & A

What's the Difference Between Wikipedia and Conservapedia?

by Troy Vettese

In November 2006, Andrew Schlafly and his class of 58 home-schooled students at Eagle Forum University launched Conservapedia, which he described as the “Fox News” version of the popular online-encyclopaedia, Wikipedia.  Although Conservapedia’s 6500 articles is dwarfed by Wikipedia’s 1.7 million, it is growing rapidly, and it is one of the busiest conservative sites, even more than billoreily.com.  Nonethe

Presidency: What Is Executive Privilege and Why Do Presidents Like to Invoke It?

by David Greenberg

Editor's Note: This article first appeared on HNN in December 2001. Given the events of the last few days, it seemed like a good idea to rerun it. During Bill Clinton's presidency, Republicans bayed about the administration's stealthy policy formulation on health care and other issues. Democrats, meanwhile, upheld the need for executive officials to deliberate in private. Now-fancy that-Democrats are championing the public's right to know, demanding that the Bush administration re

How Do We Know that Iraq Tried to Assassinate President George H.W. Bush?

by FBI Study

Former President George Bush visited Kuwait between April 14 and April 16, 1993, to commemorate the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War. Accompanying Bush were his wife, two of his sons, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, former Chief of Staff John Sununu, and former Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady. In late-April 1993, the United States learned that terrorists had attempted to assassinate Bush during his visit to Kuwait. The Kuwaiti authorities arrested 1

How Easy Is It to Search the Complete Archives of the New York Times Online?

by Thomas Padilla

In case you missed it, the New York Times announced in 2006 that its full catalog of articles would become available to the general public in an online archive. Being that the publication first came off the presses in 1851 that provides quite a cache of useful historical sources; a comprehensive set spanning more than 155 years, more than 13 million articles.  Whether you profess to be an academic or just an average Joe with a penchant for the past, the New York Times

What is Ramadan?

by Sana Shahid

Ramadan is the name of the ninth month of the Hijri (Islamic) calendar. According to the Dictionary of Islam, the word Ramadan is derived from the word ramd, "to burn" (Ramadan is associated with fasting, during which sins are said to be figuratively burned away). Fasting (Sawm) is one of the core five pillars of Islam. The others are: Shahadah (the testimony of faith), Salat (ritual prayer), Zakat (obligatory rel

How Does My Lai Compare to the Incident at Haditha?

by Daniel Sauerwein

There are many sides in the ongoing historical (and political) debate about America’s longest war, the war in Vietnam. There are those who are not sure, those who feel it was unnecessary, and those who believe that the war was a necessary one in the battle against communism during the Cold War. Recent press reports about the possible killings of Iraqi civilians at Haditha, which are still under investigation by the military, bring up an event from the war that ended over three decades ago: My Lai (also known as Son My), where hundreds of South Vietnamese civilians were slaughtered.Where is My Lai? My Lai is a small hamlet within the Son My village in the Quang Ngai province of South Vietnam (now Vietnam). A map is shown below.Credit: Wikimedia Commons/HNN staff.When did the event occur? The incident at My Lai occurred on March 16, 1968. It was a part of an operation to clear the area of Viet Cong (VC) forces.

Did Muslims Visit America Before Columbus?

by Rebecca Fachner

Is it possible that there were Muslims in the Americas before Columbus? Some claim that Muslims came to America hundreds of years before Columbus arrived in the New World. Are the claims true?Every elementary school student knows the story of Christopher Columbus; that he set sail from Spain and mistakenly discovered America in 1492, landing on an island in the Caribbean. Columbus encountered native inhabitants of this new world, and thinking that he had landed in India, he called them Indians. While many of the details have been mythologized or fabricated over the ensuing 500 years, Columbus’s expedition represents the first major discovery of the Americas and the first appearance of non-Native Americans. The conventional wisdom is that Columbus ended tens of thousands of years of near-total isolation for the Native Americans. Since the Americas had been initially populated (probably between 13,000 BC and 11,000 BC) there had been no engagement with populations on any other continent, save small ventures by the Norse into Northeastern Canada.

When Did Presidents of the United States Begin to Worry about Our Dependence on Foreign Oil Supplies?

by Daniel Sauerwein

In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush urged America to become energy independent. He remarked, “Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology.” He also noted that by improving our technology we could reduce the amount of Middle East oil imports. When did presidents o

Did Republicans Apply an Ideological Test to Bill Clinton's Supreme Court Nominees?

by Bonnie Goodman

Even before he selected Appellate Court Judge John G. Roberts for the Supreme Court President Bush argued that any person he nominated would deserve "a dignified process of confirmation in the United States Senate, characterized by fair treatment, a fair hearing and a fair vote." To many Republicans that meant that the nominee's ideology should not be put on trial. If the nominee was qualified he or she should be confirmed. After Judge Roberts was selected Republicans argued that

Has President Bush Spoken to More Military Audiences than His Predecessors?

by Melissah J. Pawlikowski

In the last few months of 2005 the number of speeches president Bush delivered to military audiences seemed to be on the increase when in December the president spoke to three different military audiences. As a direct result the media began to raise questions about president Bush’s possible use of the military as a political prop. In 2005 President Bush spoke in front of military audiences thirteen times times. Six times he explicitly used the events to thank the military for

How Do Iraq and Vietnam Compare?

by Nicholas Stirrett

How do the troop levels and casualties compare? American involvement in Vietnam began in 1950 under President Harry Truman, and “ended” five administrations later with Gerald Ford in 1975. It began with the deployment of five hundred military advisors to the country in Southeast Asia. At the start of 1965 American forces in Vietnam stood at 27,000. By the end of that same year the American fighting force had reached approximately 200,000. By 1969 t

What Is the Posse Comitatus Act?

by Dana Somerville

Recently President Bush asked Congress to consider allowing the military to assume police functions in the event of national emergencies. In the media there have been references to a posse comitatus law that currently prevents this. What in the world does “Posse Comitatus” mean? How does it affect ordinary citizens?Posse comitatus is Latin for “power of the county.” The term refers to a sheriff’s common-law authority to arrange citizens into a posse

What Is the Red Mass?

by Melissah Pawlikowski

Last Sunday the 52nd annual Red Mass was held in Washington D.C.’s Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. As the symbolically rich ceremony marks the beginning of the Supreme Court’s term, attendants included President George Bush, newly appointed Chief Justice John Roberts, along with associate justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, and Stephen Breyer. For the most part the Red Mass is like any other Roman Catholic Mass. A sermon is given, the message w

What Are the Top 10 Achievements of the Federal Government Since World War II

Update 9-17-05: This article was first published by HNN in June 2002. Given the doubts being expressed by many about the ability of government to restore and revive New Orleans, we thought it would be worthwhile to remind readers of this study. In the year 2000 a thousand historians and political scientists were asked to judge the top achievements of the federal government. Nearly half agreed to participate. Below is their

Why the Re-election of Incumbents Year After Year Is a Threat to Democracy

by Thomas Patterson

Where Have All the Voters Gone? Series by Thomas PattersonPart 1: Where Have All the Voters Gone?Part 2: Why Do So Many Americans Hate Politics?

What is the 25th Amendment and When Has It Been Invoked?

by HNN Staff

"President Bush said Friday that he is scheduled to undergo a colonoscopy — his third — on Saturday. Bush will transfer power to Vice President Cheney for about an hour while he is sedated for the screening test for colon cancer." MSNBC, 6-28-02 Disability ClauseThe 25th Amendment provides two remedies when a president is disabled. 1. The president of his own volition may turn over the power of h

Where Have All the Voters Gone?

by Thomas E. Patterson

Where Have All the Voters Gone? Series by Thomas PattersonPart 1: Where Have All the Voters Gone?Part 2: Why Do So Many Americans Hate Politics?

How Did Iraq Come into Being?

by Charles Tripp

Prof. TRIPP: Iraq was the first of the League of Nations mandate states to become independent in 1932. The British had decided quite early on that there was no need to be an imperial power in a very detailed sense in Iraq, that is administering every aspect of the Iraqi state. Rather, they should exercise what came to be called 'informal empire' in Iraq, that is a influence over the government, military basing rights, but beyond that, largely granting the Iraqis their independence.

Why Did The Palestinians Run Away in 1948?

by Yoav Gelber

Since the abortive talks at Camp David in July 2000, the Palestinian refugee problem has re-emerged as the hard core of the Arab-Israeli conflict. For five decades, the Israelis have swept the problem under the carpet, while the Palestinians have consistently developed their national ethos around their"Right of Return." Assisted by a few Israeli relativist historians, they have composed a false narrative of deliberate