History.com Editors

Modern Olympic history is full of heart-thumping victories and painful defeats. But a look back at the 28 Summer Games that have taken place since 1896 also offer a snapshot of geopolitics, a shift in women’s rights and the state of global affairs. From Athens to Rio, in the ...read more

Eid al-Adha, or the “Feast of Sacrifice,” signifies the willingness of the Prophet Ibrahim, known as Abraham in Christianity and Judaisim, to sacrifice his son, Ismail as ordered by Allah. It is one of Islam’s most important holidays. Usually lasting three to four days, and ...read more

English soldier and explorer Captain John Smith played a key role in the founding of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in 1607. Early Life and Military Exploits Born around 1580 in Willoughby, a town in Lincolnshire, England, Smith left home at ...read more

In September 1980, Iraqi forces launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Iran, beginning the Iran-Iraq War. Fueled by territorial, religious and political disputes between the two nations, the conflict ended in an effective stalemate and a cease-fire nearly eight years ...read more

Sam Houston was a Tennessee-born lawyer, soldier and politician who gained enduring fame as a leader of the Texas Revolution. After commanding Texan troops to victory over Mexican forces in the Battle of San Jacinto, he became the first president of the Lone Star Republic and one ...read more

The Bank War was the political struggle that ensued over the fate of the Second Bank of the United States during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. In 1832, Jackson vetoed a bill to recharter the Bank, and began a campaign that would eventually lead to its destruction. ...read more

Jefferson Finis Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, was a Southern planter, Democratic politician and hero of the Mexican War who had represented Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and served as U.S. secretary of war ...read more

Even before the U.S. Constitution was created, its framers understood that it would have to be amended to confront future challenges and adapt and grow alongside the new nation. In creating the amendment process for what would become the permanent U.S. Constitution, the framers ...read more

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a virus that had previously appeared sporadically around the world began to spread throughout the United States. Originally identified as a “gay disease” because gay men were one of the primary groups afflicted, HIV and the syndrome it causes, ...read more

From August to October of 1858, Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Illinois, took on the incumbent Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas in a series of seven debates. Thousands of spectators and newspaper reporters from around the country watched as ...read more

The Tulsa Race Massacre stands out as one of the worst acts of racial violence in American history—and, for decades, it remained one of the least known. Over the course of 18 hours, from May 31 to June 1, 1921, a white mob attacked residents, homes and businesses in the ...read more

In what became known as the Munich Massacre, eight terrorists wearing tracksuits and carrying gym bags filled with grenades and assault rifles, breached the Olympic Village at the Summer Games in Munich before dawn on September 5, 1972. The terrorists, associated with Black ...read more

On the evening of May 25, 2020, white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kills George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck for almost 10 minutes. The death, recorded by bystanders, touched off what may have been the largest protest movement in U.S. history and a ...read more

The leaders of the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union—the Big Three powers who had defeated Nazi Germany—met at the Potsdam Conference near Berlin from July 17 to August 2, 1945, in what was a crucial moment in defining the new, post-World War II balance of power. ...read more

The religious festival Eid al-Fitr, or the “Festival of Breaking the Fast,” is one of two major holidays celebrated by Muslims around the world. In the United States, Eid al-Fitr 2021 begins on the evening of Wednesday, May 12 and ends on the evening of Thursday, May 13.  Also ...read more

On June 22, 1941, Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, codenamed Operation Barbarossa. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler predicted a quick victory, but after initial success, the brutal campaign dragged on and eventually failed due to strategic blunders ...read more

With Adolf Hitler leading a German invasion of Poland in 1939, World War II was launched, a deadly global conflict waged across Europe and the Pacific until 1945. Bloody battles raged between the Allied powers, which included Britain, France, the Soviet Union and the United ...read more

In late-May 1887, around 30 Chinese laborers were mining gold in an isolated part of northeast Oregon, when the entire group was gunned down by a white gang of horse thieves. Initially referred to as the “Hells Canyon Massacre” or “Snake River Massacre,” and more recently as the ...read more

American astronaut Michael Collins was part of the historic 1969 Apollo 11 mission, remaining in the command module as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the moon. Since he stayed behind to pilot the command module as Aldrin and Armstrong made ...read more

In July 1892, a dispute between Carnegie Steel and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers exploded into violence at a steel plant owned by Andrew Carnegie in Homestead, Pennsylvania. In what would be one of the deadliest labor-management conflicts in the nation’s ...read more

On March 6, 1819, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland that Congress had the authority to establish a federal bank, and that the financial institution could not be taxed by the states. But the decision carried a much larger significance, because it helped ...read more

Founding Father Samuel Adams was a thorn in the side of the British in the years before the American Revolution. As a political activist and state legislator, he spoke out against British efforts to tax the colonists, and pressured merchants to boycott British products. He also ...read more

What began as a labor dispute between white and Chinese coal miners on September 2, 1885 turned into a bloodbath known as the Rock Springs Massacre that left 28 Chinese miners dead and 15 others wounded. Following the violence, white miners set 79 homes ablaze, effectively wiping ...read more

For four years, from 1914 to 1918, World War I raged across Europe's western and eastern fronts, after growing tensions and then the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria ignited the war. Trench warfare and the early use of tanks, submarines and airplanes meant the ...read more

Bleeding Kansas describes the period of repeated outbreaks of violent guerrilla warfare between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces following the creation of the new territory of Kansas in 1854. In all, some 55 people were killed between 1855 and 1859. The struggle intensified ...read more

In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois proposed a bill to organize the Territory of Nebraska, a vast area of land that would become Kansas, Nebraska, Montana and the Dakotas. Known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the controversial bill raised the possibility that slavery could ...read more