Breaking News

This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in each source note. Quotation marks are not used.

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• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/19/19
  

  Emergency powers helped Hitler’s rise. Germany has avoided them ever since.

  by Jeffrey Herf

  The lessons of the Weimar Republic.

• 
• SOURCE: Huffington Post
  2/18/19
  

  Barack Obama Shares His Recommended Reading For Black History Month

  The books, letters and articles Obama shared were meant to provide “some essential context about the challenges that many people of color face every day,” he wrote on Facebook.

• 
• SOURCE: The Fern
  2/18/19
  

  New Book Highlights Black farmers’ role in the struggle for civil rights

  Monica M. White, assistant professor of environmental justice at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, traces the history of black land-based social movements from the time of slavery to today’s urban gardens in Rust Belt cities.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/16/19
  

  The lengthy history of white politicians wearing blackface — and getting a pass

  The history of blackface in American politics is wide and deep, frequently creating little more than a ripple of outrage for the mayors, state legislators and gubernatorial candidates caught on camera darkening their skin and caricaturing black people.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/17/19
  

  The plot to assassinate George Washington — and how it was foiled

  If it weren’t for an overheard conversation in a New York jail, we might all be drinking British tea today.

• 
• SOURCE: Forbes
  2/18/19
  

  How To Drink Like A President

  The drinking habits of presidents past and present. 

• 
• SOURCE: Wall Street Journal
  2/15/19
  

  A Look at African-American History, Through the Numbers

  In recognition of Black History Month, here are a few facts and figures about the African-American experience in the U.S.

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  2/14/19
  

  White Women and White Supremacy: Equal-Opportunity Evil

  A new history reveals that for female slaveholders, the business of human exploitation was just as profitable—and brutal—as it was for men.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/19/19
  

  ‘Time for the Ku Klux Klan to night ride again’: An Alabama newspaper editor wants to bring back lynching

  “If we could get the Klan to go up there and clean out D.C., we’d all been better off,” he told the paper, explaining, “We’ll get the hemp ropes out, loop them over a tall limb and hang all of them.”

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/18/19
  

  Welcome to (possibly) the only town in America that wants a new Civil War memorial

  The proposed memorial could be the only one in the nation to include both a president and his assassin.

• 
• SOURCE: Alabama.com
  2/18/19
  

  Alabama omits Civil War leader Abraham Lincoln from Presidents Day holiday

  The reason for the Alabama variation stems from old grudges birthed in the Civil War.

• 

• Meet Annie Turnbo Malone, the hair care entrepreneur Trump shouted out in his Black History Month proclamation

  She became a millionaire after giving Madam C.J. Walker her big break as a sales agent.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/15/19
  

  A brief history of presidential lethargy

  by Stacy A. Cordery

  Before Theodore Roosevelt ascended to the presidency in 1901, the question of how hard a president toiled was of little concern to Americans.

• 
• SOURCE: New York Review of Books
  Accessed 2/14/19
  

  New Book Sheds New Light on the Starr Investigation

  by Sean Wilentz

  Twenty years after Kenneth Starr delivered to Congress his report recommending the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, the former independent counsel has delivered a second report, in the form of a memoir, condemning Clinton all over again. 

• 
• SOURCE: Smithsonian.com
  2/13/19
  

  The History of Poisoning the Well

  From ancient Mesopotamia to modern-day Iraq, the threat to a region’s water supply is the cruelest cut of all  

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times Magazine
  2/13/19
  

  The Secret History of Women in Coding

  Computer programming once had much better gender balance than it does today. What went wrong?

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/13/19
  

  The ‘real’ St. Valentine was no patron of love

  by Lisa Bitel

  Many scholars have deconstructed Valentine and his day in books, articles and blog postings. Some suggest that the modern holiday is a Christian cover-up of the more ancient Roman celebration of Lupercalia in mid-February.

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  2/13/19
  

  Union demands apology after seeing Confederate book displayed in congressman's office

  Members of a federal labor union visiting a Georgia Republican's congressional office Monday said they discovered a 19th-century book on display that they considered "racially offensive."

• 
• SOURCE: NY Times
  2/12/19
  

  Secrets of 1946 Mass Lynching Could Be Revealed After Court Ruling

  On Monday, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, affirmed a lower court’s ruling that had ordered the release of the grand jury transcripts from 1946.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/13/19
  

  Christian student challenged a school history lesson on Islam and lost in court

  As a high school junior, Caleigh Wood refused to complete a history lesson on “The Muslim World” that she said forced her to embrace Islam in conflict with her Christian faith — and the Constitution.