History

A copy from the first printing of the U.S. Constitution sold for more than $43 million Thursday night — a world record for a historical document at auction, Sotheby's said.

A crowd-funded group lost an auction for a first edition of the U.S. Constitution

4:05pm November 19, 2021

by Bill Chappell

The crowd-funded group ConstitutionDAO narrowly lost out in the hotly anticipated auction. The group had hoped to buy the rare historical document so it could be displayed for the public.

Abdul Hadi Nejrabi, the deputy ambassador, is the highest ranking official at the Afghan Embassy and one of the few employees left. "We choose to serve the people," he says. "That's the reason we are here."

In Washington, the last employees at the Afghan Embassy work until the lights go off

2:57pm November 18, 2021

by Laura Sullivan

The embassy in Washington, D.C., was once a symbol of a new Afghanistan. Now, the few staffers left refuse to serve the Taliban and are racing to help as many refugees as they can.

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Four centuries of Black American history are told in new Kronos Quartet performance

10:07am November 18, 2021

by Tim Greiving

Deep in the heart of Texas, the Kronos Quartet reflects on race relations and social unrest with At War with Ourselves – 400 Years of You, by composer Michael Abels and poet Nikky Finney.

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While digging through local laws concerning backyard chickens, Selders found a racially restrictive covenant prohibiting homeowners from selling to Black people.

National

Racial covenants, a relic of the past, are still on the books across the country

2:42pm November 17, 2021

Racial covenants made it illegal for Black people to live in white neighborhoods. Now they're illegal, but you might still have one on your home's deed. And they're hard to remove.

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Nikole Hannah-Jones won a MacArthur "Genius" Grant in 2017. She is a tenured faculty member at Howard University.

'1619 Project' journalist says Black people shouldn't be an asterisk in U.S. history

1:25pm November 17, 2021

by Arun Venugopal

Nikole Hannah-Jones says the contributions of Black people are often left out of the American story. Her mission is to reframe U.S. history through the lens of slavery.

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'Throughline' explores the past, present and future of drone warfare

5:50am November 17, 2021

The attack drone was supposed to be a symbol of the era of precision warfare. But are drones precise enough? Do they desensitize us to the casualties of civilians caught up between warring parties?

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What the history of student vaccination mandates means for school COVID vaccine rules

4:52pm November 16, 2021

by Anya Kamenetz

School vaccine mandates go back 200 years. They've defeated many legal challenges. Will they work for COVID?

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A young Daniel Radcliffe stars as Harry Potter in "Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone," which premiered in 2001.

Arts

Yer a relic, Harry: The first Harry Potter movie premiered exactly 20 years ago

12:38pm November 16, 2021

by Rachel Treisman

"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" premiered on Nov. 16, 2001. To celebrate, we're dusting off our Pensieve and revisiting NPR's coverage from 20 years ago.

Shipping containers sit stacked at a port in Bayonne, N.J., on Oct. 15. Supply chain problems are disrupting the global economy, causing delays and a shortage of containers.

World News

The pandemic economy's latest victim? The lowly shipping container

11:27am November 16, 2021

by Jackie Northam

Delayed containers are a symptom of and contributor to global supply chain problems. But imagine a world without them.

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Dot Thurby with some of the thousands of water bottles the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs distributes to members every day.

Tribes hope infrastructure law means they'll finally get clean drinking water

8:09pm November 15, 2021

by Katia Riddle

The Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon has been without clean drinking water for years, the just-passed infrastructure bill promises to fix that.

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