History

Fireworks explode in Times Square on New Year's Eve on January 1, 2018 in New York City.

National

Why we count down on New Year's Eve (and why it wasn't always the case)

1:28pm December 31, 2021

These days, a New Year's Eve celebration doesn't feel complete without one thing: a countdown. But that ritual to ring in the new year isn't as old as you might think.

Virginia conservators unpack a box left in the pedestal at the former site of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, in Richmond, Va., on Tuesday.

National

Conservators find books, coins and bullets in Virginia time capsule

7:42pm December 28, 2021

by James Doubek

Conservators in Richmond found numerous items inside a box that had been buried underneath a statue of Robert E. Lee for 134 years. It was the time capsule historians had long hoped to find.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam tweeted this photo of what authorities believe is a time capsule discovered in Richmond.

National

Virginia workers unearthed a second time capsule at the Robert E. Lee statue site

3:49pm December 27, 2021

by Joe Hernandez

Last week, experts opened a box they believed to be a chest left in the plot in 1887, but the contents weren't what they were expecting. Now they may have finally found what they were seeking.

A Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission plaque is seen along a roadside in New Castle, Pa. A recent review of all 2,500 markers has resulted in the state removing two markers, revising two and ordering new text for two others so far.

Racial reckoning turns focus to roadside historical markers

3:17am December 27, 2021

by The Associated Press

Pennsylvania is reviewing its 2,500 roadside markers, scrutinizing factual errors, inadequate historical context, and racist or otherwise inappropriate references.

South African activist and Nobel Peace Prize and Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu holds a press conference in 1986 at St Alban's Anglican Mission Church in Johannesburg.

Desmond Tutu's laugh was contagious. His fight for freedom was deadly serious

2:12pm December 26, 2021

by Greg Myre

Desmond Tutu will be remembered for helping end apartheid. But also for his memorable laugh, an infectious, cackling howl employed in the service of easing tensions in a very tense nation.

Books

NPR's favorite history books of 2021

8:06am December 26, 2021

From NPR's annual list of reading recommendations, Books We Love, we hear four suggestions of history books from 2021.

Queue Listen Now

Encore: A toy monkey that escaped Nazi Germany and reunited a family

4:41pm December 24, 2021

by Uri Berliner

The father of NPR's Uri Berliner packed a stuffed monkey when he fled the Nazis as a child. He kept the toy for decades before donating it to a museum, an act that led to a remarkable discovery.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev closes his resignation speech after delivering it at the Kremlin in Moscow on Dec. 25, 1991. After 74 years, the Soviet Union was dissolved, breaking into 15 countries. But there's often been friction among the former Sovie

How the Soviet Union's collapse explains the current Russia-Ukraine tension

8:55am December 24, 2021

by Greg Myre

To understand the friction between Russia and Ukraine, it's important to go back to 1991. Exactly 30 years ago this weekend, the Soviet Union formally dissolved and broke up into 15 separate nations.

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The "Pillar of Shame" statue, a memorial for those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, is removed from the University of Hong Kong, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021.

World News

Hong Kong university removes Tiananmen massacre statue

2:23am December 23, 2021

by The Associated Press

A monument at a Hong Kong university that commemorates the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre was removed by workers early Thursday. Workers had erected barricades around the monument late Wednesday.

This sonar image created by SEARCH Inc. and released by the Alabama Historical Commission shows the remains of the Clotilda, the last known U.S. ship involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

National

Researchers say the wreckage of last known slave ship to the U.S. is mostly intact

5:22pm December 22, 2021

by The Associated Press

Researchers studying the wreckage of the Clotilda, which has been buried in mud on the Alabama coast since 1860, say that most of the wooden schooner is still largely in one piece.