historian

Author and historian David McCullough died Sunday at the age of 89. McCullough was the author of 12 books, including “Truman” and “John Adams,” both of which earned him Pulitzer Prizes.

Don’t know what to get friends and family this year? In addition to being highly recommended by Bill Gates, these books are also on Amazon’s most-gifted list.

Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako waved and smiled from an open car in a parade Sunday marking Naruhito’s enthronement as more than 100,000 delighted well-wishers cheered, waved small flags and took photos from packed sidewalks. Security was extremely tight, with police setting up 40 checkpoints leading to the parade area. Selfie sticks, bottles and banners — and even shouting...

For visitors wondering why a tranquil cemetery outside Madrid suddenly needs around-the-clock police security, the answer is simple: an empty burial space awaits the remains of Gen. Francisco Franco, who is being reunited with his wife 44 years after he died. Weather permitting, the Spanish dictator’s preserved body will be flown Thursday by helicopter to the Franco family’s private chapel...

Hurricane Dorian isn’t the first hurricane expected to aim at South Florida over Labor Day. Some of the state’s biggest storms have hit Florida around this time, causing destruction and changing the way the area looks today. The holiday falls in the middle of peak hurricane season.

Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday he believes President Donald Trump actually lost the 2016 election and is president only because of Russian interference. Carter made the comments during a discussion on human rights at a resort in Leesburg, Virginia, without offering any evidence for his statements. “There is no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the election,” Carter...

Michael Olenick was 19 and living a secret social life, letting loose with friends at a speakeasy-like bar with blacked-out windows and one of the few floors in town where men danced with other men. Then the lights came on and the police strode into the Stonewall Inn.

Ryan Cooper was a 20-something Californian unsure of his place in the world when he struck up a pen pal correspondence in the 1970s with Otto Frank, the father of the young Holocaust victim Anne Frank. Through dozens of letters and several face-to-face meetings, the two forged a friendship that lasted until Frank died in 1980 at the age of...

Ryan Cooper was a 20-something Californian unsure of his place in the world when he struck up a pen pal correspondence in the 1970s with Otto Frank, the father of the young Holocaust victim Anne Frank. Through dozens of letters and several face-to-face meetings, the two forged a friendship that lasted until Frank died in 1980 at the age of...

Researchers working in the murky waters of the northern Gulf Coast have located the wreck of the last ship known to bring enslaved people from Africa to the United States, historical officials said Wednesday. Remains of the Gulf schooner Clotilda were identified and verified near Mobile after months of assessment, a statement by the Alabama Historical Commission said.

The mint julep is a Kentucky Derby staple. Each year, nearly 120,000 of them are served during the two-day event at the Churchill Downs Racetrack. The beverages will go for about $10 a pop at the track but, for the 14th year in a row, Kentucky bourbon distillery Woodford Reserve is offering a limited number of $1,000 mint juleps for...

One of Germany’s richest families, whose company owns a controlling interest in Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Panera Bread, Pret a Manger and other well-known businesses, plans to donate millions to charity after learning about their ancestors’ enthusiastic support of Adolf Hitler and use of forced laborers under the Nazis, according to a report Sunday. In a four-page report, the Bild newspaper...

In a two-hour address to the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, President Donald Trump made questionable and false claims about the fight against ISIS, tariffs and African American income. He also repeated a bevy of claims we’ve debunked before.

Historians say they were “shocked” and “mystified” when Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wrongly used the term “indentured servants” Sunday in reference to the first Africans to arrive in English North America 400 years ago.
Most historians abandoned use of the term in the 1990s after historical records left little room for doubt that the Africans were enslaved, the scholars said.

President Donald Trump is the latest chief executive to deliver a State of the Union address at a time of turmoil. But others may have had it even worse. Abraham Lincoln delivered a written report during the Civil War, Richard Nixon spoke while embroiled in the Watergate scandal and Bill Clinton gave one of his State of the Union speeches...

Boston’s Great Molasses Flood was one of the city’s deadliest and most bizarre disasters.

Boston is marking the 100th anniversary of its most peculiar disaster — the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. Exactly a century ago Tuesday, a massive wave of 2.3 million gallons of molasses unleashed by a ruptured storage tank came crashing through the city’s North End, obliterating everything in its path.

NORAD Tracks Santa, the military-run program that fields phone calls and messages from children around the world eager to ask when Santa will arrive, begins December 24 through Christmas Day, December 25. Despite the threat of a government shutdown, NORAD will continue this holiday tradition thanks to military personnel and some 1,500 volunteers who make the program possible year after...

The chief executive of the California Historical Society has been named the new director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Anthea M. Hartig becomes the first woman to be permanent director of the museum, one of the most popular Smithsonian attractions. She succeeds John Gray, who retired in May. Hartig, 54, will oversee 262 employees and a $50...

Presidential historian Jon Meacham remembers when, on the campaign trail, former President George H.W. Bush had an interaction with a mannequin.