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."

Thomas Rogers, one of the "Pilgrim Fathers" who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower, lived in this house in Leiden, The Netherlands.

The story of the extraordinary romance between John Basilone and his wife Lena Riggi Basilone.

Arrested and jailed for protesting without a permit, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. used his time in jail to write a letter urging a change in how Americ...

When Bobbie Lou Pendergrass lost her brother, who was an unarmed adviser in Vietnam, she wrote to President Kennedy asking why America was in Vietnam ...

President Thomas Jefferson asked one of his key aides, twenty-eight-year-old Meriwether Lewis, to lead an expedition west - all the way to the "wester...

Despite dreadful conditions and too-few horses, Lewis & Clark reach the Great Falls on June 13, 1805. Sacagawea soon makes a remarkable discovery, lea...

As the Corps of Discovery pushed forward, into the heart of the Great Plains, the explorers saw "little toy dogs.

With Shoshone horses and a Shoshone guide, Lewis and Clark forged ahead with their men.

Lewis Payne is arrested on April 17, 1865, three days after President Lincoln was shot. His fate is now sealed, after his attempted assassination of t...

After attacking Secretary of State William Seward - on the night of April 14, 1865 - Lewis Powell (also known as Lewis Paine/Payne) hid in a wooded ar...

Lewis Thornton Powell was born in Alabama, lived in Florida and served as a Confederate soldier. He became a "Lincoln Conspiracy" Defendant.

Marion Post Wolcott took thousands of pictures for the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration. This image, made in 1939, depicts a migrant c...

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