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Luis Davilla / Cover / Getty An Archivist Sneezes on a Priceless Document. Then What?
What, exactly, does history lose when an archive-worthy text is destroyed?
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HBO Why Did Dany Destroy King’s Landing? Some Theories From History
A scholar of classical warfare sees real-world parallels to the Dragon Queen’s rain of fire in the penultimate episode of Game of Thrones.
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Ted Thai / Getty How James Baldwin’s Writings About Love Evolved
The author is best known for arguing that emotional connection could help heal America’s racial divides. But his 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk focused instead on the bonds that held black people together.
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Sylvia Jennings Alexander Estate / The Atlantic When Slavery Is Erased From Plantations
Some presidential estates and other historical sites have struggled to reconcile founding-era exceptionalism with the true story of America’s original sin.
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Caitlin Cadieux / The Atlantic Animating the Best of The Atlantic's Archives
Some of the most notable and enduring works from the magazine’s past come to life in a new series of videos.
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Hulton Archive / Getty / Katie Martin / … Nikki Giovanni: 'Martin Had Faith in the People'
The day after King’s death, the writer-activist wrote a poem about what his loss meant to a movement. Fifty years later, she discusses how his model of leadership lives on.
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Bettmann / Getty Revisiting One of King's Final and Most Haunting Sermons
Delivered two months before he died, “The Drum Major Instinct” saw the preacher give his own eulogy.
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Eric Gay / AP Why Do the Boy Scouts Want to Include Girls?
The organization’s decision overturns a historic and defining separation, raising questions about their timing and how they differ from the Girl Scouts of the USA.
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AP The Museum Grappling With the Future of Black America
The Smithsonian's memorial of African American history and culture turns 1 at a time when its lessons are particularly resonant.
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Associated Press Making Sense of the Violence in Charlottesville
Was the white-nationalist march better understood as a departure from America’s traditional values, or viewed in the context of its history?
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National Park Service The Nation's Official Memorial to Robert E. Lee Gets a Rewrite
Days after the events in Charlottesville, the National Park Service quietly changed its description of Arlington House, the Virginia mansion that Congress formally named in honor of the Confederate general.
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T. Sully / Library of Congress The Revival of John Quincy Adams
The sixth president, long derided as a hapless elitist, is suddenly relevant again 250 years after his birth.
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Mike Hollingshead / Corbis / Getty Burning Fossil Fuels Almost Ended All Life on Earth
A road trip through the geological ruins of our planet's worst mass extinction.
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DJ Spooky / The John F. Kennedy Center … Why Remix The Birth of a Nation?
A live multimedia performance by the musician DJ Spooky considers the 1915 silent film’s legacy as a pioneering document in alternative facts.
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Scheufler Collection / Getty The Fictional Country You Build When Your Home No Longer Exists
The 20th-century Bohemian writer Johannes Urzidil fled his embattled birthplace just before World War II, never to return—except in the stories he wrote.
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Scott Olson / Getty / Anne Frank House … Who Does the Anne Frank Center Represent?
The organization has a flair for attracting media attention, but lacks a mass membership or scholarly expertise—and its connection to its famed namesake isn’t what it claims.
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Kevin Frayer / Getty In China, Unregistered Churches Are Driving a Religious Revolution
“The government won’t approve it, but the question is if they’ll shut it down.”
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Christian Hartmann / Reuters How Marine Le Pen Relies on Dividing French Jews and Muslims
The presidential hopeful's National Front party has been using this strategy for decades.
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Courtesy of Church of God and Saints of … When Passover Is About American Slavery
A plantation houseboy grew up to be a prophet—and inspired a religious movement.
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Beawiharta Beawiharta / Reuters Does the Quran Forbid Electing Christians?
A single verse, possibly misinterpreted, lies at the heart of a contentious election in the largest Muslim nation.
