New Orleans: The Big Uneasy
Thomas Ruys Smith looks at the impact of Hurricane Katrina in the light of the city’s historic troubles.
USA
Birth of Harriet Beecher Stowe
The American abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on 14 June 1811.
The Hindenburg Disaster and the End of the Airship Era
The Hindenburg disaster marked the beginning of the end for travel by dirigible. But airships were once a popular and luxurious way to travel.
From the Archive: In a Caribbean Storm
Alex von Tunzelmann reassesses a two-part article on the troubled relationship between the United States and Cuba, published in History Today 50 years ago in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion.
The Bay of Pigs Invasion
Perhaps the US-backed invasion of Fidel Castro's Cuba was inevitable, but its failure bucked the trend.
The Pony Express
The first Pony Express riders set off on April 3rd, 1860.
School Segregation in the USA
Mark Rathbone puts the famous 1954 school segregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, into historical context.
South Carolina secedes from the Union
One of the founder members of the Confederacy seceded from the United States on 20 December 1860.
Plato's American Republic: John Humphrey Noyes and the Perfectionist movement
‘Complex marriage’, ‘male continence’ and the selection of the perfect partner were all themes propounded by a 19th-century cult in New York State. Clive Foss explores the influence of Plato’s Republic on John Humphrey Noyes and his Perfectionist movement.
American Revivalism: To Build a Shining City on a Hill
The gulf between the religious ideals of US conservatives and those of the European Enlightenment is as wide as the Atlantic. Tim Stanley looks at the origins and the enduring legacy of the American revivalist tradition.