With its early colonial portraits, depictions of grand historical battles, transcendentalist landscapes and intimate, turn-of-the-century paintings of the elite classes, the collection of American art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York ranks as one of the finest in the world.
In "The Obamas," the new book causing a stir with its speculation about the extent of the first lady's political influence, author Jodi Kantor recounts an anecdote: A young schoolgirl tells Michelle Obama that she hopes to someday become a president's wife herself one day. "Doesn't pay well," Mrs. Obama wittily cracks.
CNN's Piers Morgan talks to author Jodi Kantor about her controversial new book "The Obamas."
Enduring privations of his own as a Civil War prisoner in Georgia, Cpl. Charles H. Knox was concerned about his wife and small child back home in upstate New York.
Trust is one of those verities that Americans have always liked to talk about.
America's political leaders are paralyzed. The government is reeling from debt. Corrupt bankers foreclose on people's homes as a brutal recession sweeps the land.
With the August 2 deadline approaching, and multiple plans being considered, politicians are heating up their rhetoric.
First of all: Michele Bachmann will not be getting my vote for president.
Lee County, Texas closely mirrors the racial and ethnic makeup of the United States. Here's the county "by the numbers."
An interest in history led Terry Hancock to the world of civil war reenacting, and introduced him to his future wife.
This week marks the 150th anniversary of the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War, a war that redefined national and regional identities and became an enduring tale of noble resistance in the South and, for the rest of the country, a mighty moral struggle to erase the stain of slavery.
One-hundred-fifty years ago Tuesday, Confederate batteries opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. Thirty-four hours later the siege ended with the surrender of the fort. Major Robert Anderson, a Kentuckian -- and the Federal commander of the fort -- reported no deaths from the bombardment.
He stood 5-foot-8 and weighed 145 pounds. His face was gaunt and sunburned. Ticks, fleas and lice covered his body.
Beneath a hand-stitched Confederate flag, Terry Hancock prepared for battle.
An average of $32 million a day in national parks revenue could be shut off if the Beltway showdown results in a government shutdown, officials say.
Ninety-five acres of farm land where young men in blue and gray fought and died during the epic Civil War battle is being added to Gettysburg National Military Park, federal officials said.
In 2010, schoolchildren in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, learned what to do in a shooting. CNN's Rafael Romo reports.
Against a very real backdrop of murder, kidnapping and torture, an upcoming video game is inviting players to "embark on a bloody road trip" to the Mexican border city of Juarez.
Forget the "NCISs," the "CSIs" and even "SVU." The most suspenseful hour on television is "Who Do You Think You Are?" And it doesn't rely on bullets, blood or a Bieber cameo to deliver thrills.
A Mississippi proposal wants to honor a Ku Klux Klansmen with a specialty license plate.
The Mississippi NAACP has called on Governor Haley Barbour to publicly denounce an attempt by a Confederacy group to honor a Ku Klux Klan leader, the organization said Monday.
Dave Taylor, a Civil War antiques dealer in Sylvania, Ohio, was excited about the possibility of buying a "top-notch," genuine .36-caliber Spiller & Burr revolver that had belonged to a Confederate officer from North Carolina.
A publisher has deleted the N-word from two Mark Twain classics. Right move, or unjust censorship?
The vapid, smiley-faced effrontery of it corrodes the foundations of respect for American literature.
A panel of historians has found an "appalling" number of factual errors in a new fourth-grade history textbook used in many Virginia school districts, one of the experts said.
The Ides of March was indeed a portentous day for the Confederate gunboat Peedee and its the 90-man crew, which heaved three artillery pieces overboard and torched the doomed vessel in the waning weeks of the Civil War.
On March 25, 1863, in the heat of the U.S. Civil War, Pvt. Jacob Parrott and six other Union soldiers received the Medal of Honor for going 200 miles behind enemy lines to hijack a Confederate train. He became the first U.S. service member to receive the medal. Parrott survived the Civil War and, according to several websites, went on to become a cabinetmaker.
CNN iReport showcases past and present images of Hurricane Katrina's destruction from the people who lived in its wake.
The discovery of the exact location of a stockade and dozens of personal artifacts belonging to its Union prisoners is one of the biggest archaeological Civil War finds in decades, federal and Georgia officials said Monday.
A recent British study found that the longer couples are married, the less they have to say to each other over the course of an hour-long meal.
British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Tuesday for the first time with U.S. President Obama at the White House. Here's an almost-accurate look at key dates in the two countries' shared histories:
President Obama welcomes British Prime Minister David Cameron to the White House. CNN's Ed Henry reports.
The Texas Board of Regents voted unanimously Thursday to change the name of Simkins Residence Hall, a University of Texas at Austin dormitory named after a man prominent in the Ku Klux Klan in the 1800s, the state university system said.
There are typically two types of comic book movies -- movies like "Ghost Rider" and movies like "Batman Begins."
Josh Brolin talks about working with John Malkovich and Megan Fox in his new movie "Jonah Hex."
The National Trust for Historic Preservation added 11 sites to its most-endangered list Wednesday, including one of the last remaining Negro League ball parks, a Civil War battlefield, a prehistoric cultural site in Guam and America's state parks and state-owned historic sites.
It has been eight years since people in my state of Virginia got a chance to debate the meaning of the Civil War in front of the nation, and the comments posted on CNN and other news Web sites suggest our passion over the topic has not dimmed.
CNN's Joe Johns looks at the group that got Virginia's governor to issue a proclamation honoring the Confederate legacy.
"I'm a big history buff," President Obama said in an interview with ABC News" George Stephanopoulos. "And I think that understanding the history of the Confederacy and understanding the history of the Civil War is something that every American and every young American should be part of."
CNN's John Zarrella reports on a Stimulus-funded project in the Dry Tortugas National Park.
Weather and time have inflicted more damage to Fort Jefferson than hostile cannon fire ever did.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell calls omitting any reference to slavery when declaring Confederate History Month a mistake.
Based on the hundreds of e-mails, Facebook comments and Tweets I've read in response to my denunciation of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to honor Confederates for their involvement in the Civil War -- which was based on the desire to continue slavery -- the one consistent thing that supporters of the proclamation offer up as a defense is that these individuals were fighting for what they believed in and defending their homeland.
Virginia's proclamation of Confederate History Month without any reference to slavery was unacceptable, President Obama said in an interview broadcast Friday.
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell apologized Wednesday for leaving out any reference to slavery in his recent proclamation designating April as Confederate History Month, calling it a "major omission."
Sixteen-fifty-one Pennsylvania Avenue isn't quite as famous as the address right across the street.
CNN at TED2010
updated: Mon Feb 15 2010 13:35:00
Preview our conversations with speakers from the TED conference in Long Beach, California.
Pointing to a graphic of a spider's silk-spinning organ projected on a giant screen, scientist Cheryl Hayashi said, "That's the business end of a spider," drawing laughs from hundreds in the TED2010 conference audience. "Hey don't laugh, that's my life."
Haiti's poverty has been much discussed since its massive earthquake, but little has been said of its rich, and equally fraught, history.
I have a milder form of autism (Asperger's syndrome). Are there certain jobs that I cannot do after I get out of college? What are the jobs that I will not be able to do?
Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying, "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." Planning a road trip is hardly nuclear science, but perhaps the professor had learned that a well-chosen overnight stop can yield treasured memories.
Less than a month before the Civil War's start, a newly inaugurated President Lincoln took time from his frantic schedule to write to an Illinois boy whose classmates didn't believe he'd met the president.
Army Secretary John McHugh ordered a new investigation into poor record keeping and other problems at Arlington National Cemetery even as a separate investigation ended without an absolute answer to who is buried in a grave marked "Unknown."
CNN's Wayne Drash takes you inside one of the nation's last cotton mills, where denim for blue jeans begins.
Christopher Wolfe has a Tough As Nails, I Love America attitude. His pride swells along with his tattooed biceps. He's a dying breed, a blue-collar American working on a product as American as apple pie.
Nationally syndicated radio host Tom Joyner raised his hand in victory.
The world may soon know for sure where Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca rests after fascists executed him in 1936 during Spain's Civil War.
Nationally syndicated radio host Tom Joyner raised his hand in victory.
Tom Joyner expresses his joy about his great uncles being pardoned nearly 100 years after they were wrongly executed.
Loretta Chaisson Lewis, 28, was the first to die. She was reported missing on May 17, 2005. Three days later, fishermen found her body floating in a canal off Highway 26 in Jennings, Louisiana.
I'm in the northern end of Lebanon's infamous Bekaa Valley (as in terrorists and drugs) in the city of Baalbeck about to enter its dramatic Roman ruins. Near the entrance of the site I see a large colorful tent set up, with music pouring out. I walk in, not realizing that what I've stumbled upon is a Hezbollah fundraising exhibition. But with the photos of smashed Israeli army tanks, weeping Palestinian children and triumphant jihadists that becomes apparent pretty quickly. And if that's not enough, then there's the backroom with the coffin in the center surrounded by photos of dozens of martyrs, as in suicide bombers.
Perhaps your history teachers failed to alert you to these Civil War facts: Jefferson Davis nearly got mugged by an angry female mob; Abraham Lincoln loved the Confederate anthem "Dixie," and Paul Revere was a Civil War casualty.
Few items are more highly prized among collectors of historical artifacts than a handwritten letter from President Lincoln.
Carl Azuz explores how a day to decorate the graves of Civil War troops became a day honoring all of America's fallen.
Memorial Day is more than just a three-day weekend and a chance to get the year's first sunburn. Here's a handy 10-pack of facts to give the holiday some perspective.
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