U.S. History

The storyThe City of Mounds — About a thousand years ago, one of the biggest cities in the world north of Mexico stood in what is now Illinois.

The storyThe Knotted Cords — In 1680, Pueblo towns that spoke different languages secretly joined together and drove the Spanish out of New Mexico.

The storyThe Colony That Vanished — In 1590 John White sailed back to Roanoke Island to find his family. He found only a word carved into a post.

The storyBeaver Pelts and Brass Kettles — For more than a century, the fur trade tied Native nations and Europeans together and pulled both into war.

The storyTwo Lanterns and a Fast Horse — On a cold spring night in 1775, a warning raced from Boston into the Massachusetts countryside.

The storyA Winter of Huts and Hunger — In the winter of 1777, the Continental Army nearly fell apart at Valley Forge, and came out of it stronger.

The storyA Hot Summer Behind Closed Doors — In 1787, a group of delegates locked themselves in a room in Philadelphia and wrote a plan that still governs the nation.

The storyMount Vernon: Two Stories on One Hill — George Washington's beloved home was also a place where hundreds of people lived in slavery.

The storyInto the Unknown West — A small band of explorers set out from Illinois to cross a continent they had never seen.

The storySmoke on the Mississippi — When the first steamboat came down the great river, it changed how the West lived, worked and traded.

The storySequoyah and the Talking Marks — A Cherokee silversmith who could not read invented a way for his whole nation to write.

The storyFrom Sleepy Village to Gold-Rush City — In about two years, a quiet bay-side village became one of the busiest cities in the world.

The storyRoads to Freedom in the Dark — Thousands of enslaved people risked everything to escape, helped by a secret network that ran through Illinois.

The storySeven Debates Across Illinois — In 1858, two Illinois men argued about slavery in front of huge crowds, and the whole country listened.

The storyLetters Home — Far from home, soldiers on both sides picked up pencils and wrote to the people they missed.

The storyThe 54th Massachusetts at Fort Wagner — In 1863, Black soldiers charged a Confederate fort to prove something the whole nation was watching.

The storyFreedom Readers — The moment slavery ended, people of every age crowded into schools to do what had been forbidden: learn to read.

The storyThe Buffalo Nearly Vanish — Tens of millions of bison once roamed the Plains. By 1890, only a few hundred were left in the wild.

The storyA House on Halsted Street — In 1889, two young women moved into an old mansion in one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods and opened its doors to everyone.

The storySaving the Wild Places — A nation that had spent a century taming the land began to ask a new question: which places should be kept wild forever?

The storyOld Tactics Meet New Weapons — In 1914, soldiers marched off expecting a short war. They found a long line of ditches instead.

The storyA Trumpet on the South Side — In 1922, a young horn player from New Orleans stepped off a train in Chicago and helped change American music.

The storyOne Family Gets By — The Kowalski family is imaginary, but everything that happens to them happened to millions of real American families.

The storyOnly What You Could Carry — In 1942, the U.S. government forced about 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry from their homes, though most were American citizens.

The storyThe Box in the Living Room — In about ten years, television went from a rare gadget to the center of the American home.

The storyRuby Bridges Walks to School — In 1960, a six-year-old girl walked past an angry crowd to go to first grade.

The story1968: The Year That Shook the Nation — In a single year, war, murder, protest and a trip around the Moon filled America's TV screens.

The storyThe Night the Wall Opened — On November 9, 1989, a mistake at a press conference opened a wall that had split a city for 28 years.

The storyNew Americans Take the Oath — Every year, hundreds of thousands of people raise their right hands and become U.S. citizens.