U.S. History

Historian Daniel Immerwahr shares surprising stories of U.S. territorial expansion, including how the desire for bird guano compelled the seizure of remote islands. His book is How to Hide an Empire.

Journalist Brian Palmer toured several Confederate sites and monuments across the South and found a distorted message that celebrates the Confederacy and often omits the fact of slavery all together.

For many years, U.S. immigration favored immigrants from northern Europe. NPR correspondent Tom Gjelten explains how a 1965 law changed things — and led to the current debate about border security.

Historian David Blight's new biography describes Douglass' escape from slavery, his passionate leadership in the abolitionist movement and his gift as a writer and orator.

Author Andrew Delbanco says the 1850 law paved the way for the Civil War by endangering the lives of both escaped slaves and free black men and women in the North. His book is The War Before The War.

When Karen Piper was 6, her family moved to the Mojave Desert. In A Girl's Guide To Missiles she describes how her parents designed weapons, but she didn't understand how it all connected to war.

Presidential historian Jon Meacham says looking back at times when the nation was divided by partisan fury and racial strife can help shed light on "the politics of the moment."

Yunte Huang's new book chronicles the lives of the "original Siamese twins," who were brought to America in 1829 and forced to perform in a freak show. They later married and fathered 21 children.

Law professor Adam Winkler says that in the past 200 years, businesses have gone to court claiming constitutional rights that were originally intended for people. His new book is We the Corporations.

In 1971, Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the press in hopes they would help end the Vietnam War. He looks back on his early days as a national security analyst in The Doomsday Machine.

The chief white house photographer for President Obama tells the stories behind some of his most famous photographs.

Politico's Philip Shenon says Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK led to a law stating all documents about the Kennedy assassination must be released by October 2017. Three hundred new pages just came out.

The story of John and Will Kellogg who co-created ready to eat breakfast cereals, like cornflakes. John was a 7th Day Adventist and physician who ran a sanitarium that pioneered the wellness movement. Will Kellogg, the younger brother was the industrial and marketing brains behind Kellogg cereal.

Tales from the American West are marked by heroism, romance and plenty of cruelty. Among those stories, the saga of the Donner Party stands alone — a band of pioneers set out in covered wagons for California, and eventually, stranded, snowbound and starving, resorted to cannibalism.

In 1933, faced with a housing shortage, the federal government began a program explicitly designed to increase — and segregate — America's housing stock. Author Richard Rothstein says the housing programs begun under the New Deal were tantamount to a "state-sponsored system of segregation."

In 1978 cult leader Jim Jones led about 900 of his followers to commit mass suicide in the colony he set up in Guyana. Investigative journalist Jeff Guinn has written a new book about how Jim Jones became a cult leader and demagogue.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, as anti-communist sentiment gained ground in the United States, paranoia and persecution swept through Hollywood. The House Un-American Activities (HUAC) began interrogating some of the country's most talented filmmakers and actors, accusing them of being communists or communist sympathizers.

Historian Bernard Weissberger. He’s the author of “America Afire,” (William Morrow 2000). The book chronicles the political tumult surrounding the Presidential Election of 1800 between Adams and Jefferson. As in this election, a voting glitch caused confusion. Neither candidate was willing to concede. Weissberger compares the events then, at the birth of the Constitution, to the Gore v. Bush controversy now. He has written more than a dozen books and works on documentaries with Bill Moyers and Ken Burns.

Journalist Stephen Kinzer's book, True Flag, explains how the Spanish-American War launched an ongoing debate about America's role in the world. Kinzer has also been writing about President Trump.

In the '60s, the CIA began a secret program that aimed to curb Communism by arming and training local fighters in Laos. Author Joshua Kurlantzick calls it "the largest covert operation in US history."