History

Billionaire's Research Team Discovers Japanese World War II Battleship

10:10am March 05, 2015

by Sam Sanders

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen says his team found the wreckage of the Mushashi in the Sibuyan Sea off the Philippines. The vessel was sunk during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944.

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President Obama arrives at the TransCanada Stillwater Pipe Yard in Cushing, Okla., in 2012 after renewed momentum in Congress to approve construction of the northern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Politics & Government

Failed Keystone Veto Override Marks Another Win For Veto Pen

4:21pm March 04, 2015

by Ron Elving

Since the beginning of the republic, regular presidential vetoes have been overridden only 7 percent of the time, and that percentage falls to 4 percent if you include the sneakier "pocket veto."

National

The Secret History Of Knock-Knock Jokes

7:54pm March 03, 2015

by Linton Weeks

The complicated story behind the simple, repetitive wordplay jest.

Ben Franklin's Famous 'Liberty, Safety' Quote Lost Its Context In 21st Century

11:40am March 03, 2015

He once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." That quote often comes up in the context of new technology.

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A teenage Claudette Colvin refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger during the segregation era in Montgomery, Ala.

National

Before Rosa Parks, A Teenager Defied Segregation On An Alabama Bus

9:43am March 03, 2015

by Radio Diaries

Claudette Colvin was a 15-year-old student from Montgomery, Ala., when she refused to yield her bus seat to a white passenger. But she has been largely forgotten in civil rights history.

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Bass Reeves, depicted here in an illustration from Joel Christian Gill's Tales of the Talented Tenth, was one of the first African-American U.S. marshals. Click here for a closer look.

Books
Arts

'Strange Fruit' Shares Uncelebrated, Quintessentially American Stories

10:12am March 02, 2015

by NPR Staff

Have you heard of Bass Reeves? Richard Potter? Spottswood Rice? "Box" Brown? If not, illustrator-historian Joel Christian Gill says, you're missing out on some of the best stories in American history.

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50 Years Ago, Selma's Bloody Sunday Sparked Voting Rights Act

8:15am March 02, 2015

by Debbie Elliott

In 1965, peaceful marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Selma has become a rallying cry for equal rights around the world.

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Then-U.S. ambassador to Iraq Christopher Hill (right) tours the Mosul Museum of History in May 2009. This week the self-declared Islamic State posted a video online that showed militants going through the museum, pushing over statues and smashing artifact

World News

Remembering The Relics And Rich History Of Mosul, Before ISIS

2:03pm February 28, 2015

by Alice Fordham

When NPR's Alice Fordham visited Mosul in 2010, bird droppings and rain were the biggest threats to its archaeological sites. Now ISIS has destroyed artifacts that had endured for millennia.

Construction workers at the Erbil Citadel, which was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site last year.

World News

After 6,000 Years, Time For A Renovation At Iraq's Citadel

10:40am February 28, 2015

by Ari Shapiro

The Citadel, at the heart of the Kurdish city of Erbil, has been inhabited for six millennia. Now, amid war and destruction, it's undergoing a much-needed restoration and upgrade of city services.

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Students Patrick Rohrer, Sarah Warthen, Alix Piven and Lauren Urane are led by Mercyhurst University Archeologist Andy Hemmings. Their project has picked up where Florida's State Geologist Elias Sellards left off in 1915. Sellards led an excavation of the

Can You Dig It? More Evidence Suggests Humans From The Ice Age

10:40am February 28, 2015

by Greg Allen

Initially dismissed as a hoax a century ago, scientists have found evidence in Florida of humans living 14,000 years ago. If the findings hold up, they will help rewrite the history of early man.

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