Unsung History

In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner advanced his now-famous Frontier Theory, arguing that the American identity was forged through the process of exploring and adapting to new environments in ...

20 Apr 53min

In the Weimar Republic, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld opened the Institute for Sexual Science and advocated for the repeal of legislation that criminalized sexual relations between men. At the Institute, pion...

6 Apr 44min

For 74 days in 1810 the current-day parishes of East and West Feliciana in New Orleans were part of the independent Republic of West Florida, which flew a lone star flag. By that point the residents o...

23 Mar 44min

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was formed in 1927 one of the goals of the founders was to recognize achievements in the industry. That recognition quickly took the form of annual...

9 Mar 47min

George Washington privately condemned slavery while actively holding hundreds of people in enslavement. He championed gradual emancipation plans while scheming to keep the people he enslaved from acce...

22 Feb 46min

One hundred years ago, Dr. Carter G. Woodson created and launched the inaugural Negro History Week after his professors told him that Black people didn’t have a history worth studying. Negro History W...

9 Feb 46min

Reed Peggram, born in Boston in 1914, a gay Black man in a world that put up barriers to his success, excelled at Harvard before heading to a Europe on the brink of war. In Europe he fell in love with...

26 Jan 40min

Charles C. Diggs, Jr., founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, spent 25 years in Congress, pushing for change, on issues from segregation in commercial aviation to home-rule for the residents of Wa...

12 Jan 48min