Nov 2, 2023
In late 1960 the Congo crisis was front-page news. Photographers and newsreels captured the humiliating arrest and imprisonment of the newly independent country's ousted prime minister, Patrice Lumumba. In January 1961, his domestic political enemies murdered Lumumba in a remote clearing. What the world did not know at...
Oct 3, 2023
When President Bill Clinton eulogized Richard Nixon in April 1994, he briefly referred to advice he had received from the former president just the month before. “Even in the final weeks of his life, he gave me his wise counsel, especially with regard to Russia,” said Clinton at the 37th president's funeral. The...
Sep 14, 2023
This is the first episode in an occasional series examining major counterfactual scenarios in history.
As the 60th anniversary of his assassination approaches, a question still hangs over John F. Kennedy’s legacy: had he lived and been reelected, would he have withdrawn from Vietnam? It’s a tantalizing...
Aug 29, 2023
Anniversaries have a way of concentrating our minds on important events, but most Americans paid little attention to a certain date in history when it crossed their calendars this month. On August 19, 1953, the CIA toppled Iran’s democratic prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh and installed the Shah Mohammad Reza...
Apr 18, 2023
April is Confederate Heritage Month in Mississippi. Since the Confederacy was created by secession with the aim of protecting human chattel slavery, one wonders what kind of heritage Mississippians are supposed to celebrate. Maybe Governor Tate Reeves' bland proclamation, which makes no mention of slavery, treason, or...