historian

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, in a sharp break with tradition, testified against his colleague Sen. Jeff Sessions on Wednesday during Sessions’ confirmation hearings to be Attorney General.

Dive into how pupusas, El Salvador’s national dish, made their way from El Salvador to Washington D.C. and what makes this dish special to the District’s culinary scene.

The pupusa has made a delicious mark on D.C.

Japan’s Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako waved and smiled from an open car in a parade Sunday marking Naruhito’s enthronement as more than 100,000 delighted well-wishers cheered, waved small flags and took photos from packed sidewalks. Security was extremely tight, with police setting up 40 checkpoints leading to the parade area. Selfie sticks, bottles and banners — and even shouting...

For visitors wondering why a tranquil cemetery outside Madrid suddenly needs around-the-clock police security, the answer is simple: an empty burial space awaits the remains of Gen. Francisco Franco, who is being reunited with his wife 44 years after he died. Weather permitting, the Spanish dictator’s preserved body will be flown Thursday by helicopter to the Franco family’s private chapel...

Hurricane Dorian isn’t the first hurricane expected to aim at South Florida over Labor Day. Some of the state’s biggest storms have hit Florida around this time, causing destruction and changing the way the area looks today. The holiday falls in the middle of peak hurricane season.

Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday he believes President Donald Trump actually lost the 2016 election and is president only because of Russian interference. Carter made the comments during a discussion on human rights at a resort in Leesburg, Virginia, without offering any evidence for his statements. “There is no doubt that the Russians did interfere in the election,” Carter...

Michael Olenick was 19 and living a secret social life, letting loose with friends at a speakeasy-like bar with blacked-out windows and one of the few floors in town where men danced with other men. Then the lights came on and the police strode into the Stonewall Inn.

An historic change is coming to the Smithsonian Institution. For the first time in 175 years, an African American has been named to head the museum system.

Researchers working in the murky waters of the northern Gulf Coast have located the wreck of the last ship known to bring enslaved people from Africa to the United States, historical officials said Wednesday. Remains of the Gulf schooner Clotilda were identified and verified near Mobile after months of assessment, a statement by the Alabama Historical Commission said.

The mint julep is a Kentucky Derby staple. Each year, nearly 120,000 of them are served during the two-day event at the Churchill Downs Racetrack. The beverages will go for about $10 a pop at the track but, for the 14th year in a row, Kentucky bourbon distillery Woodford Reserve is offering a limited number of $1,000 mint juleps for...

Retired Pope Benedict XVI has published an analysis on the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal, blaming it on the sexual revolution of the 1960s and church laws that protected priests. The essay immediately raised eyebrows, seeming to interfere with or even contradict Pope Francis’ own efforts to confront one of the most critical issues facing the church. One church...

Montgomery County Parks Senior Historian Jamie Ferguson Kuhns spoke with Pat Lawson Muse about Rev. Josiah Henson, a former slave who helped others escape to freedom and who will be honored with a new museum.

One of Germany’s richest families, whose company owns a controlling interest in Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Panera Bread, Pret a Manger and other well-known businesses, plans to donate millions to charity after learning about their ancestors’ enthusiastic support of Adolf Hitler and use of forced laborers under the Nazis, according to a report Sunday. In a four-page report, the Bild newspaper...

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at the D.C.-based university and author of the book “The Case for Impeachment” told News4 that Barr’s letter to Congress on Sunday confirms that the Russian government attempted to influence and sway the result of the 2016 presidential election in favor of Trump.

Allan Lichtman, a historian at American University and the author of “The Case for Impeachment” discusses the results of the Mueller report and examines key findings in Attorney General William Barr’s summary, including evidence that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential investigation and attempted to coordinate with the Trump campaign. News4’s Erika Gonzalez has the interview.

In a two-hour address to the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2, President Donald Trump made questionable and false claims about the fight against ISIS, tariffs and African American income. He also repeated a bevy of claims we’ve debunked before.

The “Green Book” was more than a revolutionary way for African Americans to travel in this country; it was an economic engine for burgeoning entrepreneurs, particularly black women.

Historians say they were “shocked” and “mystified” when Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam wrongly used the term “indentured servants” Sunday in reference to the first Africans to arrive in English North America 400 years ago.
Most historians abandoned use of the term in the 1990s after historical records left little room for doubt that the Africans were enslaved, the scholars said.