Did you know that thirteen of the first fifteen United States presidents owned slaves?   This stat is quite well-known among historians, ...

I don’t have any verified homesteaders in my family tree  –  well, maybe a few  –  but it is always tempting in times like these to...

I belong to an alumni association which is more social club than academic,  and was reminded recently of our penchant for creating what...

As a historian I recognize that every generation thinks that the next is going to hell in a hand-basket.   I personally was raised with...

It is embarrassing to open a sentence with,  “I was taught”.   I like to think of myself as a free-thinker even in my developmental...

I have history envy.   I doubt that it’s a very widespread malady, though possibly infectious.   Therefore, in the public interest I have...

Two hundred years after the first Pilgrims, Dutch East Indian employees and English Cavaliers arrived on these shores (and began the...

Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, Toni Morrison, has admitted in interviews that she writes the story she would like to...

We have certainly come a long way from the days when American schools began to introduce media – ever so cautiously – into the curriculum...

When I was in junior high, my history teacher planted a trick question in a pop quiz that made a lasting impression on me. He asked us to...

I was recently on the receiving end of a flattering and wholly unexpected accolade recognizing many decades of volunteer work promoting...

“Seeing the elephant”, I’m told, is a purely American phrase which gained popularity in the early 19th century. Coincidentally, the first...

Andrew Carroll in his excellent new book (Here is Where) about what he calls America’s “forgotten history”, raises the question about the...

One of my ever-lasting passions is for movies which toy with the space-time continuum, or time travel. There are tons of them out there,...

My grandfather was an original subscriber to American Heritage Magazine, the classy hardbound history magazine written and edited by some...

One of the hallmarks of our tours is that we offer the opportunity to walk where history happened. When you think about it, this really...

I read recently that, according to a Netherlands travel study (plus followup research conducted by psychologist and consultant Shawn...

If you have ever surfed the upper reaches of the cable channels in desperate search of semi-literate diversion, you have probably run...

When we were first developing the Lewis & Clark Trail as a Vanishing Trails Expedition I kept track of all the books I read in my...

It probably won’t come as much of surprise that I am crazy about history.  I don’t ever remember not being interested in everything...