The 1984 shooting death of a Black grandmother in her Bronx apartment sparked an ongoing movement against police brutality and neglect of the mentally ill.
Demolition in process on the East Wing of the White House, Oct. 23, 2025.
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
President Donald Trump is trying to prescribe the style and content of many federal sites to highlight his own authority and promote a particular view of America.
Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump at the White House.
Press service of the president of Ukraine
From grave robbing to road construction, a cemetery in Richmond, Va., reveals the long pattern of Black Americans burying their dead in spaces that received few protections.
Scenes from downtown St. Louis on ‘Black Tuesday,’ Nov. 28, 1939, show how thick the smoke was even in the middle of the day.
Missouri Historical Society
The situation had to get pretty bad before people really forced the government to act. But the effort was ultimately successful.
The Erie Canal, seen here in Pittsford, N.Y., opened up western regions to trade, immigration and social change.
Andre Carrotflower via Wikimedia Commons
Two hundred years ago, the Erie Canal was often derided as a ‘folly.’ Yet the waterway went on to transform the American frontier.
A crowd gathers outside the New York Stock Exchange following the ‘Great Crash’ of October 1929.
New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper Photograph Collection, US Library of Congress
The retirement of United Mine Workers of America’s longtime president is a reminder that labor and religion have always been entangled in coal country.
FBI Director Kash Patel is sworn in to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 16, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
FBI director Kash Patel says he is making the bureau more accountable. Critics charge him with purging it of anyone not perceived as loyal to President Trump.
A photo from inside a church service that was held following the September shooting at a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan.
Ryan Sun/AP
Sunday’s attack on worshippers at an LDS church exposes, once more, the lingering animosity Mormons receive from both sides of the political spectrum.
A Texas A&M free speech case raises questions about academic freedom that have featured before in American society and courts, including during the 1950s.
Westend61
The McCarthy era in the 1950s was another politically contentious time that raised questions about how politics influences what gets taught in the classroom.
Russell Nelson, center, sits during the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ biannual General Conference in Salt Lake City in 2019.
George Frey/Getty Images
Russell M. Nelson pushed the church away from members’ longtime nickname, ‘Mormons’ – a term that has shaped other Americans’ view of the church for 200 years.
A monument to survival and perseverance has survived, by happenstance, to share its stories today.
Courtesy of the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) at Old Salem
The staircase was originally acquired due to its craftsmanship. Only later did scholars realize that it was where Harriet Jacobs suffered abuse at the hands of her enslaver.
Eureka, what an idea!
TU IS/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Donald Trump has a partisan ally running the FBI. He’s urged retribution against his perceived enemies. Will today’s FBI repeat the vast, unconstitutional persecutions of the J. Edgar Hoover era?
The Mississippi National River & Recreation Area provides access to water activities right in the middle of the metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
David Joles/Star Tribune via Getty Images
These sites of national significance hold surprising treasures no less wondrous than the big-name destinations, potentially right around the corner from your home.
James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, participates in the National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House on May 3, 2007.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Richard Flory, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
For Americans who do not follow evangelical Christian media, James Dobson may not have been a household name. Yet the views he promoted shaped US society for more than 50 years.
Beehive Geyser, in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park.
Thomas S. Bremer
Native American groups were aware of the region’s dramatic features. Since the national park’s creation, other faiths have also been inspired by its beauty, from Christians to New Age groups.
The Trump administration detained former Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, center, for more than two months and is seeking to revoke his lawful permanent resident status.
Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images
A 1952 law that President Harry S. Truman opposed, calling it a step backward, now underpins many actions by the Trump administration against noncitizens in the US.