American History Story Briefs

America - still a young country by world standards - began as an experiment in self-government. This collection includes stories of America's people as they follow a path of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Paving the way for other activists to integrate Woolworth lunch counters, four African-Americans sat in "whites-only" seats at the Greensboro, North C...

U.S. Marines fight desperately to keep the airfield at Guadalcanal.

Exactly eight months to the day, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, 11,000 American Marines land on a Pacific island called Guadalcanal. They are about...

The Battle of Guadalcanal proves turning point for the War in the Pacific

As oil continues to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, from the uncapped well at Mississippi Canyon 252, BP (British Petroleum) and the U.S. federal gover...

Gutzon Borglum - depicted in this image - is famous for the carvings at Mount Rushmore, but that project was not the first time the sculptor attempted...

Edward Sorel created this parody of America's sitting Vice-President, Spiro Agnew, in 1973. Not long after the political cartoon was published by Harp...

America's greatest circus disaster - the Hartford fire of July 6, 1944 - occurred during World War II. Soldiers who had been wounded during various b...

As the flames moved up, from the circus tent's untreated sidewall, they found the big top's roof with its treated layer of paraffin and gasoline. A d...

My story is about the Hawaiian Overthrow in Hawaii and how the throne was taken away from Queen Liliuokalani (the first and last queen of Hawaii). It ...

John F. Kennedy (JFK) was the 35th president of the United States.

Helen Keller first realized the meaning of words when her teacher (Annie Sullivan) spelled “water” (w-a-t-e-r) in her hand on the 5th of April, 18...

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