Poet Natalie Diaz returns, interrogating the lasting effects of colonization asking: If a colonizer's influence can't be eradicated from a culture, how can you push back against violence and erasure? Continue Reading BOOK Read More
In Ghost River: The Fall and Rise of the Conestoga, Native artists retell the events of a brutal massacre in pre-Revolutionary Pennsylvania and bring a painful history to life on the page. Continue Reading Read More
Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the executive producer of a new documentary focusing on the lives of black Americans on both sides of the Revolutionary War, whose stories aren't often told. Continue Reading Read More
The Treaty of 1855 created the Yakama Nation reservation as we know it today. In the decades after, the Yakama, Washington state, and the United States were trying to figure out their new relationship. At the turn of the century, Louis Mann was in the middle of it all, working as an interpreter for the tribe. Now, audio recordings of Mann’s strong voice have resurfaced. Read More
NPR's Steve Inskeep, discussing his book Imperfect Union: How Jessie and John Fremont Mapped the West, Invented Celebrity and Helped Cause the Civil War, touches on parallels to U.S. politics in 2020. Continue Reading Read More
Our kids' books columnist, Juanita Giles, gave her daughter Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story for Christmas; she says the book's depiction of food and history mirrors her family's experiences. Continue Reading Books Read More
U.S. immigration authorities want to increase the fee for obtaining immigration files by 500%, which means some people would have to pay more than $600 for the documents. The move would affect families of the millions of people who immigrated to the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Read More
In some historical Nativity scenes, the shepherds have grossly enlarged thyroid glands — also known today as goiter. It's an apparent symbol of their poverty and iodine-deficient diet. Continue Reading Why Certain Poor Shepherds In Read More
Midwinter has been a period of festivities for millenia, but Christmas as we know it today has its origins in Victorian Britain. It was in Victorian times that the idea of Christmas as a family holiday, with gift giving, a tree, and an intimate dinner became central to this celebration. Read More
Part of the difficulty in teaching Thanksgiving is that the story of the first Thanksgiving is incomplete, according to Edwin Schupman, a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation of Oklahoma who helps educators talk about Native American history and culture. Read More
Artist Dread Scott organized the 26-mile trek to New Orleans as a tribute to the men and women who protested their enslavement in the German Coast Uprising of 1811 by re-imagining a different outcome. Continue Reading Hundreds Read More
"Growing up I would hear about our peoples being 'discovered' ... " says author Brittany Luby. "I would go home and my parents would tell me: That's not actually how things happened." Continue Reading ‘Encounter’ Re-frames The Read More
Triple Nickles thought they were destined for Japan when they stopped at Pendleton Army Airfield in the spring of 1945. But no, they were about to be converted into smokejumpers for Operation Firefly. Professional smokejumping started in 1939 in Washington's Methow Valley. Read More
An archaeological dig along the Salmon River in western Idaho has yielded evidence of one of the oldest human settlements in the Americas yet found. Newly published findings from the excavation give impetus to a scientific rethinking of when and how the first people arrived in North America. Read More
In Stacey Lee's new novel, an opinionated and talented Chinese American girl makes her way in Reconstruction-era Atlanta while preserving her secret work as an advice columnist in the local paper. Continue Reading BOOK REVIEW: Read More
Photo analysis by a forensic imaging expert from suburban Seattle is backing up a new search for the pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart. Right now, a National Geographic expedition is at an uninhabited island in the South Pacific looking for Earhart's missing airplane. Read More
Morrison was the author of Beloved, Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Continue Reading Toni Read More
The fire that engulfed Notre Dame cathedral shocked the world earlier this year. And a wildfire in July on Rattlesnake Mountain in southeast Washington similarly shocked Northwest tribes. Continue Reading ‘A Total Sense Of Read More
In December of 1968, some of the biggest names in rock and roll came together to film The Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus. The film was recently given a 4K restoration. Continue Reading Resurrected Rolling Stones Film Finds Pivot Read More
A half-century ago, America's dreams were realized in space. The power of U.S. innovation and spirit took the Apollo 11 crew to the moon and back. That mission was possible because of a diverse team of engineers, astronauts and mathematicians. It was also possible thanks to the help of one 10-year-old boy who was in the right place at the right time. Read More
Fallen soldiers, outlaws, bankers, a madame, and maybe even a couple of witches all reside in one place now. It isn’t the set up for a bad bar joke, though.
Mountain View Cemetery in Walla Walla is the earthly home to these and other deceased figures. Read More
Hyena-pig. Murder-cow. With no modern analog, scientists have resorted to combinations of common animals to describe it. Dug up decades ago in the Hancock Mammal Quarry near John Day, Oregon, the bone from this prehistoric creature languished, misidentified in museum storage, until Selina Robson pulled it from its drawer. Read More
Music historian James Karst explains his recent research into the early life of the legendary Louis Armstrong. Continue Reading Satchmo In His Adolescence: 1915 Film Clip May Show Young Louis ArmstrongRead More
Horwitz's publisher says he died of apparent cardiac arrest. A Pulitzer Prize winner for covering the hardships of low-wage workers, the peripatetic writer sought truths obscured by history's cliches. Continue Reading Tony Horwitz, Read More
The Clotilda carried 110 people from present-day Benin to the shores of Mobile in 1860, despite the import of slaves being illegal. Researchers told descendants about the discovery first. Continue Reading Alabama Historians Say The Last Read More
Woody Guthrie was born into the Dust Bowl's devastation and displacement. His signature song, taught in classrooms and sung at protests, offers an expansive, inclusive idea of what home can be. Continue Reading American Anthem: Read More
Historian Karen Ordahl Kupperman shines a new light on Pocahontas, showing how she made her way as a go-between for her two cultures, and introducing us to her long-forgotten English counterparts. Continue Reading BOOK REVIEW: Read More
In his new book, Nick Estes points a way forward, with solidarity and without sentimentality, to an idea of Indigenous land alive with ancestry and renewal. Continue Reading BOOK REVIEW: ‘Our History Is Read More
Four programs this March examine myriad aspects of women’s history, from poetry. Tina Fey takes you into the hidden world of girls around the world, Meryl Streep narrates a program about how women poets radically changed American poetry, and hear about the women pilots of World War II. More about these programs and when to… Read More
A proposal to remove the larger-than-life statues of pioneer missionary Marcus Whitman from the Washington state capitol and the U.S. Capitol drew angry responses during an initial legislative hearing in Olympia. Continue Read More
Peter Jackson's documentary, featuring expertly restored archival footage from the first World War, is "astonishing"; his "digital tools summon empathy, not spectacle." Continue Reading FILM REVIEW: World War I Brought To Read More
Thriller author Brad Meltzer and documentary producer Josh Mensch offer an intriguing look at a true-life, foiled plan that, had it succeeded, may have killed the American dream before it even began. Continue Reading BOOK Read More
Emily Washines was 18 years old when she was crowned Miss National Congress of American Indians. Yakama tribal councilmembers and elders sung a warrior song for her and then extracted a promise. Tribal leaders had something in mind. They wanted Washines to remember a message about a little-known war that wracked the Northwest in the 1850s. Read More
The state's previous social studies standards listed three causes for the Civil War: sectionalism, states' rights and slavery, in that order. Continue Reading 1 In 10 Public School Students Are In Texas. Read More
An Oregon-based group of shipwreck hunters wants to find the historic remains of the first steamship to provide service in the Puget Sound in the 1800's. The shipwreck search was inspired by one Port Townsend, Wash., man's obsession. Read More
There's an episode of The Johnny Cash Show from 1969 where the man himself makes a little speech with a pretty big error. "Here's a song that was reportedly sung by both sides in the Civil War," Cash says, guitar in hand, to kick off a performance of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The real history is clear: Julia Ward Howe wrote the song as a pro-Union, anti-slavery Read More
CREDIT PATTY COLMER FROM CITRUS HEIGHTS, UNITED STATES / WIKICOMMONS Nothing says love like silk ties, long-distance correspondence, divorce and murder-suicide. OK, maybe a hug and kiss would do, but for your Valentine’s Day entertainment here are some historical Northwest stories that have something to do with love. Imagine a ball of silk yarn.… Read More
