More than America’s greatest lexicographer, Noah Webster (1758-1843) published a supremely influential spelling book, served as confidant of both George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, effectively...
Source: http://www.davidrumsey.com The city of Mobile, Alabama, was a major center of trade on the Gulf Coast during the Civil War. Although the Union blockading fleet patrolled Mobile, blockade...
Source: American Newspaper Archives / America's Historical Newspapers July of 2011 marks 50 years since the suicide of American author and Nobel Laureate Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway ranged far from...
Some things never change, or so suggested the Duluth News Tribune in 1916: The origins of America’s national pastime are murky to say the least. How- ever, the contest now recognized as the first...
One of the joys of browsing American historical newspapers is discovering the unexpected from around the world. Take this photograph, for example, of a car being dragged across a Siberian river during...
[Kate Brown, a U.S. Senate laundress promoted to retiring room attendant, is most notable for winning the 1873 Supreme Court Case Railroad Company v. Brown. This spring Brown was the focus of a...
Source: Morning Oregonian, Feb. 5, 1910 Low-fat? Low-calorie? Low-carb? Headlines seem to grab the public’s interest every day with warnings about what and what not to eat. With food-related health...
Robert Smalls (April 5, 1839–February 23, 1915) Born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina on April 5, 1839, Robert Smalls was eventually taken to Charleston and hired out by his master to various...
According to the Boeing Corporation’s history of its Bomarc missile, Source: Boeing.com "...the supersonic Bomarc missiles (IM-99A and IM-99B) were the world's first long-range anti-aircraft missiles...
Our guest blogger today is Julie Ann McDaniel, Librarian, Swedenborg Memorial Library, Urbana University Source: The Historical Marker DataBase Mechanicsburg, Ohio is a really small place today—less...
Photo credit: Courtsey of Kheel Center The Triangle Shirtwaist Company was a business that made shirtwaists, the common term of the day for women's blouses. The business, owned by Max Blanck and Isaac...
From the Missouri Republican, Apr. 1, 1888. Click to open. Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, Alabama. When she was 19 months old, an illness left her both deaf and blind. A...
[This article by Graham Russell Gao Hodges, George Dorland Langdon Jr. Professor of History and Africana & Latin American Studies, Colgate University first appeared in the February 2011 issue of The...
One hundred years ago this month, Ronald Reagan was born in the Illinois village of Tampico. Other prominent Americans born in 1911 include Lucille Ball, Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Bishop, Hank...
Farmers' Register (14 May 1805) An early mention of Valentine’s Day in an American newspaper comes from the Farmers' Register (Lansingburgh, NY). This article, reprinted from an unnamed British paper...
Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851) by American painter Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze (Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art) No Christmas celebration would be complete without Santa Claus, carols and...
[This post by David Brooks, a recent graduate of Taylor University, first appeared in the November 2010 issue of The Readex Report.] Of all the events that occurred during America’s colonial era...
The 1988 return to flight launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery (Source: NASA Images) The highly anticipated launch of space shuttle Discovery later this month will mark the beginning of an end. The...
In this issue: how digitized newspapers shine a brilliant light on past lives; the profound impact of religion on African-American identity; the Boston Tea Party as perceived by both Colonialists and...
What do the following seven people have in common: Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Peter Ayodele Curtis Joseph, Modibo Keita, Shafie Ahmed el-Sheikh, Samora Machel, Agostinho Neto, Sam Nujoma and Nelson...
Map Credit: Courtesy of the Special Collections Department, University of South Florida. Digitization provided by the USF Libraries Digitization Center. This year marks the 200th anniversary of the...
FBIS Daily Report Annexes, 1974-1996 is an essential complement to FBIS Daily Reports—the fully searchable broadcast and news resource featuring first-hand reporting from around the globe. This new...
“The Police, in Revolt; the Jails, Open; the Nation, in Riot; the Families, in Dismay” – Thus runs the headline of Mexico’s El Diario on November 25th, 1911, as the Mexican Revolution raged in the...
Paper: The State; Date: Dec. 5, 1905; Issue 5302; Page 1; Columbia, South Carolina In a recent article entitled “Who Said It First?” on the Web site Slate, Jack Shafer investigates who first coined...
