A&E Television
History.com: Why Is Election Day a Tuesday in November?
Americans first began the custom of weekday voting in 1845, when Congress passed a federal law designating the first Tuesday following the first Monday in November as Election Day in the hope of streamlining the voting process. But why a...
A&E Television
History.com: The Wwi Origins of the Poppy as a Remembrance Symbol
The Remembrance Day symbolism of the poppy started with a poem written by a World War I brigade surgeon who was struck by the sight of the red flowers growing on a ravaged battlefield. From the devastated landscape of the battlefields,...
A&E Television
History.com: After Wwii, Survivors of Nazi Horrors Found Community in Displaced Persons Camps
Though the legacy of World War II Nazi death camps looms over Europe, a lesser-known camp network arose after the war with a diametrically opposed vision: to give traumatized populations a new lease on life. Established by the victorious...
A&E Television
History.com: The Soviet Response to the Moon Landing? Denial There Was a Moon Race at All
Until 1989, Russians claimed they were not trying to reach the Moon first and that the U.S. was in "a one-nation race." Until 1989, a group of American aerospace engineers went to Moscow and finally saw the Soviets' failed lunar-landing...
A&E Television
History.com: Why the Air Force Almost Blasted the Moon With an H Bomb
Detonating a thermonuclear weapon on the moon? It sounds like the bizarre scheme of a deranged comic-book villain -- not a project initiated inside the U.S. government. But in 1958, as the Cold War space race was heating up, the U.S. Air...
A&E Television
History.com: 7 Negative Effects of the Industrial Revolution
While the Industrial Revolution generated new opportunities and economic growth, it also introduced pollution and acute hardships for workers.
A&E Television
History.com: How Jim Thorpe Became America's First Multi Sport Star
Decades before Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders starred in baseball and football, Jim Thorpe was America's original multi-sport athlete. A two-time college football All-American and charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Thorpe...
A&E Television
History.com: Colonists at the First Thanksgiving Were Mostly Men Because Women Had Perished
According to this account (elements of which continue to be debated by historians, especially regarding the presence and role of Native Americans), the historic event didn't happen on the fourth Thursday in November, as it does today,...
A&E Television
History.com: How the Iroquois Confederacy Was Formed
In the story of the Great Law of Peace, Hiawatha and the Peacemaker convince leaders of the Five Nations to literally bury the hatchet. Centuries before the creation of the United States and its Constitution, democracy had already taken...
A&E Television
History.com: Why the Wampanoag Signed a Peace Treaty With the Mayflower Pilgrims
The peace accord, which would be honored on both sides for the next half-century, was the first official treaty between English settlers and Native Americans, and a rare example of cooperation between the two groups. On the orders of...
A&E Television
History.com: Amid the Holocaust's Horrors, Many Jews Found Ways to Mark Hanukkah
From carving menorahs on stolen blocks of wood to creating makeshift wicks from scraps of fat and used loose threads, concentration camp inmates devised covert ways to celebrate the holiday. All over Europe Jews found ways to celebrate...
A&E Television
History.com: How Aids Activists Used "Die Ins" to Demand Attention to the Growing Epidemic
As the AIDS crisis took hold in the 1980s, killing thousands of Americans and ravaging gay communities, the deadly epidemic went unaddressed by U.S. public health agencies -- and unacknowledged by President Ronald Reagan -- for years. In...
A&E Television
History.com: California's Little Known Role in the American Civil War
Though far from the main fighting, California made an outsized contribution to the Union victory, mostly in the form of gold and troops. California proved pivotal to the Union war effort, propping up the economy with its vast gold...
A&E Television
History.com: 5 Things You May Not Know About Kwanzaa
As millions of people around the world prepare to celebrate Kwanzaa, explore five things you may not know about this pan-African holiday.
A&E Television
History.com: How the Columbian Exchange Brought Globalization and Disease
Christopher Columbus' arrival in the Caribbean in 1492 kicked off a massive global interchange of people, animals, plants and diseases between Europe and the Americas.
A&E Television
History.com: What Did the Three Continental Congresses Do?
During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress became America's de facto government. Over a period of 15 years, from 1774 to 1789, the Continental Congress underwent a profound evolution. Starting out as a temporary group that...