AMERICAN HERITAGE

Featured Articles

“Killers of the Flower Moon” and a Hundred Years of Healing

My grandparents were murdered during the Osage Reign of Terror. It took my family generations to recover.

“I will leave this house only if I am dead,” the prominent New York doctor told his ex-wife, who was seeking half the value of their Manhattan townhouse in a divorce.

Dickey Chapelle in the Fight

by Lorissa Rinehart

The award-winning photojournalist broke gender barriers and was the first American female reporter killed in combat in Vietnam.

John Muir Fights to Save Yosemite

by Dean King

Muir struggled for decades to create and protect Yosemite National Park, and helped launch the American environmental movement.

Classic Essays from Our Archives

Growing Up Colored | Summer 2012, Vol 62, No 2

By Henry Louis Gates Jr.

The noted writer and educator tells of his boyhood in the West Virginia town of Piedmont, where African Americans were second-class citizens but family pride ran deep.

1619: The Year That Shaped America | Winter 2019, Vol 64, No 1

By James Horn

Four hundred years ago this year, two momentous events happened in Britain’s fledgling colony in Virginia: the New World’s first democratic assembly convened, and an English privateer brought kidnapped Africans to sell as slaves. Such were the conflicted origins of modern America.

A Yankee Among The War Lords | October 1970, Vol 21, No 6

By Barbara W. Tuchman

First of the Three Parts from STILWELL THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE IN CHINA 1911-1945

Who Invented Scalping? | April 1977, Vol 28, No 3

By James Axtell

In recent years many voices—both Native-American and white—have questioned whether Indians did in fact invent scalping. What is the evidence?

How My Father and President Kennedy Saved The World | October 2002, Vol 53, No 5

By Sergei Khrushchev

The Cuban Missile Crisis as seen from the Kremlin

Range Practice | Februrary 1968, Vol 19, No 2

By Dean Acheson

Our former Secretary of State recalls his service fifty years ago in the Connecticut National Guard—asthmatic horses, a ubiquitous major, and a memorable

Today in History

Liberian independence

Liberia declares its independence from the United States, becoming the first democratic republic in Africa.
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FBI founded

The Justice Department creates the Bureau of Investigations, now known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Founded to regulate interstate commerce under the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, the first Bureau agents were actually borrowed from the Secret Service.
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National Security Act

President Harry Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, which reorganizes the War Department into the Department of Defense, established the United States Air Force, and creates both the National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency.
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New York enters the Union

New York ratifies the United States Constitution and enters the Union as the 11th state.
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