RealClearHistory - Opinion, News, Analysis, Video and Polls

One afternoon in May 1861, a young Union Army officer went rushing into the mansion that commanded the hills across the Potomac River from... Read More

Most Influential Battles in History

Michael Lee Lanning, History Place

Battles win wars, topple thrones, and redraw borders. Every age of human history has experienced battles that have been instrumental in... Read More

O.J.'s Surreal Low-Speed Chase

Jim Newton & Shawn Hubler, Los Angeles Times

O.J. Simpson, the football great who rose from the mean streets of San Francisco to international celebrity, was arrested Friday for the... Read More

Whatever Happened to Al Cowlings?

Luke Norris, Sportscasting

It’s been more than a quarter of a century since the infamous white Bronco chase involving former Heisman Trophy winner and Pro... Read More

Brezhnev Didn't Change Much of Anything

Agence France Presse

Russia on Saturday quietly marked 30 years since the death of Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, an enigmatic figure whose era of "stagnation"... Read More

Nureyev Was a 'Wild Thing' on Stage and Off

Joan Acocella, The New Yorker

f ever there was an artist who invited the retributive sort of biography that is in fashion these days, it is Rudolf Nureyev. Nureyev, as a... Read More

Imre Nagy: Hungary's Martyr

Chris Trueman, History Learning Site

Imre Nagy led the Hungarians in the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. As Prime Minister, Nagy knew that he was taking a huge risk – a risk that... Read More

Confederacy Scores Big Victory at Secessionville

My Civil War

Early June 1862, Maj. Gen. David Hunter transported Horatio G. Wright's and Isaac I. Stevens's Union divisions under immediate direction of... Read More

10 Odd Facts About Ford Motor Company

Hot Cars

The Ford Motor Company is one of the most well-known car company's in the world of motoring, having created some classic vehicles during its... Read More

Ups, Downs, and Thrills of First U.S. Roller Coaster

Tony Long, Wired

1884: The first gravity roller coaster designed and built specifically as an amusement ride opens at Coney Island, New York. It is a... Read More

Zyklon B Making Comeback in Arizona

Caroline Petrow-Cohen, Los Angeles Times

High school history class taught me — and almost certainly you — that the Nazis murdered millions of Jews and other persecuted... Read More

The Evolution of Roland Garros

Christopher Clarey, New York Times

PARIS — In my 30th year of covering the French Open, I am in need of a map. The courts where I have watched so many matches on the... Read More

USPS Honors WW II Japanese American Soldiers

Anh Do, Los Angeles Times

At 16, Don Miyada was wrenched from his family’s farm near Laguna Beach and sent to a prison camp in Arizona. Two years later, he was... Read More

Why Was Girl Buried With Finch in Her Mouth?

Vaagisha Singh, Eminetra

Archaeologists are trying to solve the mystery of a girl who was buried hundreds of years ago with at least one finches in her mouth. During... Read More

Gladwell's Thesis Flawed in 'Bomber Mafia'

Colin Dickey, New Republic

There’s a scene in the 2011 film Moneyball where Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane is mentoring young Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) on how to... Read More

Rome's Worst, Most Shocking Rulers All in One Book

History Book Club

Roman history is replete with people and stories that shock our modern sensibilities. Evil Roman Emperors puts the worst of Rome’s... Read More

Beautiful Portrait of British Victory at Malta

Jonathan Jordan, Wall Street Journal

Naval battles are notoriously hard to describe. We cannot walk the battlefield, photograph bomb craters and trenches, or visit the graves of... Read More

A Plea for Ethel Rosenberg

Joseph Dorman, New York Times

Few trials in American history can match that of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg for its sensationalism. The young couple were arrested in 1950... Read More

Essential Reading

There Goes Robert E. Lee

For months, the businessmen, community...

Why the Early Progressives Rejected Founding Principles

The Progressive Era was the first major...

In the News

John Murawski, RealClearInvestigations

Wokespeak's Logic-Defying Rhetoric Is Making Heads Spin
Ben Voth, American Thinker

The Presidential Response to the Tulsa Riot

Multimedia

Why We Fight

Why the Framers' Intentions Matter

Neither Monarch nor Magistrate

Videos

Reagan's 'Tear Down That Wall' Speech

1955 Le Mans Crash Kills 83 Fans

100 Years of Bob Hope

Original Footage of Dunkirk Evacuation

RealClearHistory Tuesday

The Battle That Was Robert E. Lee's Last Stand

History Central

Lee was forced to withdraw to Petersburg. It was realistically his last stand, and his only chance to block Grants advance on Richmond. It... Read More

U.S.-Canadian Border Not a Straight Story

Frank Jacobs, Opinionator

It’s funny the way close observation can change your perception of things. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle says something like... Read More

Jews Forced to Clean Up in Crematoriums

U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

Sonderkommandos in the Killing Centers Although the situation differed among camps, the purpose and daily life of the Sonderkommandos were... Read More

Pushing Closer to Japanese Homeland

Francis O'Brie, WWII Magazine

In the early morning hours of July 7, 1944, Lieutenant Colonel William J. O'Brien, commander of the 1st Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment,... Read More

Vickers Wellington Was Great Britain's WW II Workhorse

History and Headlines

On June 15, 1936, the Vickers Wellington twin engine bomber made its maiden flight. The bomber would be produced from 1936 until the end of... Read More

George Washington Takes Command

Massachusetts Historical Society

In the days after the Battle of Bunker Hill, there is a stalemate between British and colonial forces while both sides regroup. The British... Read More

Massive Pinatubo Eruption Devastates Despite Warning

USGS

Bursts of gas-charged magma exploded into umbrella ash clouds, hot flows of gas and ash descended the volcano’s flanks and lahars swept... Read More

Terra Nova Expedition: Ambitious But Ill-Fated

Alex Q. Arbuckle, Mashable

In 1910, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott embarked on an ambitious expedition to Antarctica, aiming to explore uncharted wastelands,... Read More

Nixon Worse Than We Thought

Bernstein & Woodward, Washington Post

As Sen. Sam Ervin completed his 20-year Senate career in 1974 and issued his final report as chairman of the Senate Watergate committee, he... Read More

Dante an Outspoken Politician, Too

Mark Cartwright, World History Encyclopedia

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) was an Italian poet and politician most famous for his Divine Comedy (c. 1319) where he descends through Hell,... Read More

The 20 Most Important Battles of World War II

David Hambling

World War II was the greatest conflict in history, carried out on a scale almost impossible to grasp. In many ways it was the first modern war, in which airpower played a vital role both on land and at sea, but many actions were ultimately won by the determination and grit of the foot soldier. Here\'s the whole vast panoramic epic of the Second World War presented in 20 of its most significant bat... Read More

Civil War

How America Forgot the True History of the Civil War

Ryan Cooper

After the clashes and white supremacist terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, the latest dimension of our unfolding national meltdown is over monuments to the Confederacy. In retaliation for the violence in Charlottesville, demonstrators pulled down a Confederate statue in Durham, several cities in the North quickly yanked theirs down, and several other places are considering the same thing.... Read More

Crime

Inside O.J's 'If I Did It' Memoir

James Wolcott, Vanity Fair

So here it is, laid out sweet on the desk, in living color—O. J. Simpson's If I Did It. Newsweek obtained the book's most controversial chapter, but Vanity Fair landed the whole enchilada. What to make of it, that's the rub. Despite its animating anger, it's a book that projects a strange lack of affect, a suave void. It made me think of the movie Sunset Boulevard. There, the tale of murder ... Read More

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Wednesday, June 16

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