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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 These personal letters, largely unpublished, capture the experience of the common soldier and his...