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If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

If you don’t see the full story below, click here (PDF) or click here (Google Docs) to read it—free!

Sometimes documents leave us with more questions than answers. That is definitely true for this letter of October 8, 1859, from an unidentified man to his mother—both of whom appear to be slaves! The author refers twice to having a...

These miniature portraits of Jane and Franklin Pierce, attributed to artist Moses B. Russell, were painted shortly after the couple was married in 1834. Measuring only 4 ¼ inches tall by 3 ½ inches wide, the paintings have gilt-metal...

Between battles, marches, and military exercises, Civil War soldiers spent their free time in camp playing music, writing and reading letters, and, for those with the skill, sketching scenes from the day. This unknown soldier’s...

In the fall of 1941 Thomas Barwiss Hagstoz Askin Jr. was on board USS Memphis counting down the days until his enlistment in the United States Navy ended. He recorded his experience in a diary he entitled "Memorys and Incidents of My...

After his escape from slavery in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a well-known orator and abolitionist. In 1845, he wrote an autobiography that increased his influence, but also increased the chances that he would be captured and...

When World War I ended, President Woodrow Wilson attended the Paris Peace Conference, where the Allied nations met to write the Treaty of Versailles . In September 1919, President Woodrow Wilson embarked on a speaking tour of US...

Explore in depth Paul Revere’s 1770 print "Brittish Ships of War Landing Their Troops, 1768" and check out Paul Revere’s related propaganda print of the Boston Massacre .

View the full Battle of the Thames document and read an essay on the Battle for Baltimore during the War of 1812 .

View Columbus’s letter , read an excerpt , or view a depiction of his landing .

On Monday, October 12, many Americans had the day off and stores hosted sales under the name of that 15th-century Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus. But Columbus’s impact on our world reaches past a 3-day weekend and great deals...

Ever wonder why the name "Fido" has become synonymous with dogs? It all goes back to a very special dog belonging to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln always had a fondness for animals, and it has been speculated that he relied on his pets to...

On October 27, 1904, New York City was forever changed. Nine miles of what one day would become 137 miles of subway track were ready for travel. After months of construction and a few iffy test rides, the IRT (Interborough Rapid...

Meryl Streep’s new bio-pic, Suffragette , chronicles the adventuresome lives of the British women’s rights advocate Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters. Tired of waiting for equality, the Pankhurts’ Women’s Social and Political Union...

Read an excerpt of John R. Chapin's eyewitness account of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 .

In 1769, Alexander Hamilton, an ambitious young clerk in St. Croix, wrote to a friend that "I . . . would willingly risk my life, tho not my Character, to exalt my station. . . . I wish there was a war." Seven years later, he was a...

View the account of the 1793 yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia or read the transcript .

Do you want to make a great interactive timeline that incorporates images, text, audio, and video? TimelineJS is a great free tool to explore. View this tutorial as a printable PDF. If you need more help, or if you'd like to explore...

In October 1948, Jesse LeRoy Brown made history by becoming the first African American naval aviator. Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, in 1926, Brown was inspired to become a pilot by an airshow that he attended at age six. After...

On October 28, 1919, the National Prohibition Act—also known as the Volstead Act—was passed by Congress, overriding President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. On January 16, 1920, Americans would have to put down their drinks and shutter the...

The question of whether the United States has entered a new Gilded Age pops up quite frequently in magazines, op-eds, and newscasts these days. Here, historian Edward O’Donnell, author of Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality ,...

Historian Jeffrey Sammons tells the story of the Harlem Rattlers in the Great War. The 369th Regiment —a unit of African American soldiers — fought on two fronts: in the trenches of Europe and for civil rights in the military and at...

Read about Cornwallis' last gambit at the Siege of Yorktown and view more primary sources related to the surrender of Cornwallis.

The Gilder Lehrman Collection contains more than 15,000 letters written by servicemen from the American Revolution through World War II. These personal letters, largely unpublished, capture the experience of the common soldier and his...

Read about the report from the Western Sanitary Commission regarding the conditions of freed slaves in the Mississippi valley.

On October 19, champions of American history education gathered at the Yale Club in New York City to celebrate the 2015 Gilder Lehrman National History Teacher of the Year. The award highlights the crucial importance of American...

On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified when Virginia approved ten of the twelve proposed constitutional amendments. Historian Carol Berkin talks about the genesis of the first ten amendments to the Constitution and the...

Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer discusses Abraham Lincoln’s complex relationship with the press and public opinion. Are you a Lincoln enthusiast? Visit "Lincoln Speaks: Words That Transformed a Nation," an online exhibition about...

On December 17, 1903, the Orville and Wilbur Wright achieved the first successful airplane flight. Historian David McCullough says one of the most enjoyable things about working on his book The Wright Brothers was becoming acquainted...

In 1918, Ella Osborn, a nurse working in New York City, volunteered to serve in the US Army. She kept a diary from January 1918, days before she sailed from New York, to the day of her return to the US and release from service in...

On December 14, 1780, Alexander Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler, the second daughter of wealthy patriot Philip Schuyler. One of our favorite documents in the Gilder Lehrman Collection is a love letter from Hamilton to Elizabeth ,...

Can you tie a sailor’s knot? Can you cook a one-pot meal in the woods? Can you, if necessary, splint a sprained wrist? If you answered yes to these questions, and if you’re anything like 2.8 million women and girls, you may have been...

The Gilder Lehrman Institute is delighted to announce a partnership between the New York City Department of Education and the Broadway musical Hamilton . With support from the Rockefeller Foundation, 20,000 NYC public high school...

On this day in 1842, Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd in her sister’s front parlor in Springfield, Illinois. The wedding came after a two- year courtship and engagement. A mysterious break in the engagement came in 1841, which some...

These days, Thanksgiving is all about the food—from the classic turkey to delicious pumpkin pie, Americans look forward to overindulging on favorite foods that we associate with the harvest bounty of 17th-century Massachusetts. But...

Read about historical campaigns in Elections: History Now 1 (Fall 2004) or Electing a President: History Now 33 (Fall 2012) .

In 1904, the US took over a massive overseas building project—a ship canal in Panama that would connect the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. This wasn’t a new idea. In his first message to Congress as president in 1869, Ulysses S....

Do you want to explore an image down to the smallest detail? StoryMapJS Gigapixel is a great free tool to help you do that. Check out our gigapixel on The War of 1812 in the West . View this tutorial as a printable PDF . If you need...

Set yourself a challenge: Map Lewis and Clark’s journey west with diary entries . . . Take a walk around the haunts of the Transcendentalists in Concord, Massachusetts. . . . Wherever you want to recreate history, the open-source...

George Tillotson from Greene, New York, enlisted in the 89th New York Infantry in November 1861. Some of his Civil War–era letters are among the 15,000 letters in the Gilder Lehrman Collection written by servicemen . He wrote home on...

Each summer, the Gilder Lehrman Institute offers academically rigorous seminars for K–12 educators and National Park Service interpreters. Held at colleges and historic sites across the US and abroad, the weeklong seminars offer...

Read about the journey for equal rights for women in Women’s Suffrage: History Now 7 (Spring 2006) .

Harvard professor and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore describes how, within a single generation, relations between the settlers and the Wampanoags declined from the fabled First Thanksgiving to a devastating war. Lepore notes: ...