History

National

A Battle To Wash Away A Fountain's Controversial Namesake

6:23pm January 02, 2015

by Eleanor Klibanoff

In Washington, D.C., a local commissioner is working to get Sen. Francis Newlands' name removed from a fountain. Newlands was an outspoken white supremacist who tried to repeal the 15th Amendment.

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World News

After Uprising, A Struggle To Restore Tunisia's Ancient Emblems

6:23pm January 02, 2015

by Leila Fadel

Preservationists are struggling to renew the ancient Medina in Tunis — one of the oldest Arab Muslim cities and a warren of elegant doorways, fountains and faded palaces mansions.

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About This Series: The 12 Days Of Quirky Christmas Foods Around The Globe

1:21pm December 30, 2014

by Maria Godoy

We're kicking off a 12-part series exploring the rich diversity of Christmastime edibles around the world. We've zeroed in on meals that reveal as much about a country's history as its gastronomy.

Depression-Era Photos Make A Mark In American Photography

6:35pm December 29, 2014

by Leah Scarpelli

A Yale University project has organized and mapped photographs taken for the Farm Security Administration and Office of War Information from 1935 to 1946. Now there's an online tool to explore them.

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Question: "Does the NYPL have a computer for the use of the public?" Answer: "No sir!"

Books
Arts

Before The Internet, Librarians Would 'Answer Everything' — And Still Do

4:28pm December 29, 2014

by NPR Staff

The New York Public Library recently came upon a box of questions posed to the library from the 1940s to the '80s — an era when humans consulted other humans for answers to their daily questions.

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Great Dismal Swamp, in Virginia and North Carolina, was once thought to be haunted. For generations of escaped slaves, says archaeologist Dan Sayers, the swamp was a haven.

Fleeing To Dismal Swamp, Slaves And Outcasts Found Freedom

3:50pm December 28, 2014

by Sandy Hausman

Most Americans know about the Underground Railroad, which allowed Southern slaves to escape to the North. But some slaves stayed in the South, hidden in a place where they could resist enslavement.

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Common plays James Bevel, Tessa Thompson plays Diane Nash, Lorraine Toussaint plays Amelia Boynton and Andre Holland plays Andrew Young in Ava DuVernay's Selma.

Arts

For Hollywood, 'Selma' Is A New Kind Of Civil Rights Story

6:54pm December 27, 2014

by Karen Grigsby Bates

The film, about a 1965 voting rights march, stands out for its focus on black characters, including some of the movement's lesser-known organizers, and the way it humanizes Martin Luther King Jr.

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An Iraqi Christian prays inside a shrine on the grounds of the Mazar Mar Eillia Catholic Church in Irbil, in northern Iraq. Irbil has become home to hundreds of Iraqi Christians who fled their homes as the Islamic State advanced earlier this year.

With Each New Upheaval In Iraq, More Minorities Flee

11:10am December 27, 2014

by Deborah Amos

"We like Iraq, but Iraq doesn't like us," says a displaced Christian man. He's just one of example of religious minorities who have been dislodged from parts of Iraq where they have ancient roots.

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British and German soldiers fraternizing at Ploegsteert, Belgium, on Christmas Day 1914. World War I was raging at the time, but front-line troops initiated the truce, which they documented in photos and letters. Commanders on both sides were furious when

World News

A Century Ago, When The Guns Fell Silent On Christmas

7:00am December 25, 2014

by Ari Shapiro

World War I had just begun and the battles were blazing in the winter of 1914. But on Christmas Eve, something strange and unexpected happened. The soldiers in the trenches decided to call a truce.

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World News

Romania's Rush To Judge Ceausescu Haunts Retired General

7:00am December 25, 2014

by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson

Andrei Kemenici, who was a colonel then, says he still thinks about the 4 days he held Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife in custody before their execution 25 years ago on Christmas Day.

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