Place

The 1927 disaster exposed a country divided by stereotypes, united by modernity.

A true story of the defining phrase of the Lone Star state.

Despite common belief, Washington, D.C. was not built on a swamp.

Whatever the Trump administration does with Environmental Protection Agency, its urban legacy is clear.

How a Boston rebellion became an American Revolution is a story too seldom told because it is one we take for granted.

Bicycle mania swept the nation at the end of the 19th century. Can it happen again?

During the late 19th century, blacks and whites in the South lived closer together than they do today.

When a dam gave way after unprecedented rainfall, it sent a wall of water barreling toward a Pennsylvania town of 30,000 people.

Washington may be the only city on Earth that lobbied itself into existence.

Do you live on Native American territory?

Ellis Island celebrates its 125th anniversary as the federal immigration depot.

As the city reached for the sky, those down below had to scramble for daylight.

The long history of benevolence, self-help, and parades in New Orleans.

Cahokia was bigger than Paris — then it was completely abandoned. I went there to find out why.

In Fayette County, West Virginia, expanding the document of disaster.

"The blues was born on a riverboat between Louisville and New Albany, along those docks, in the 1890s. I mean, the blues was born nowhere, of course. Or it was born many places."

A graphic history of the community displaced for the vast public park in 1857.

How did Niagara Falls become the Honeymoon Capital of the World?

In the 1960s, civil rights activist Floyd McKissick successfully sold President Nixon on an idea of a black built, black-owned community in North Carolina.

Political polarization in the U.S. mirrors its spatial divide.

In the 1930s, the federal government created redlining maps for almost every major U.S. city. Explore those maps and their contexts in a brand new version of this project.

Rare footage from the 1920s, when Oklahoma was home to some 50 African-American towns.

The Bush administration thought an elective war would make America safer. Then Katrina hit.

More than 150 years ago, Frederick Law Olmsted changed how Americans think of public space.

The story of the thousands of free-range pigs who managed New York’s waste in the 1800s.

In August 1966, the Chicago Freedom Movement, Martin Luther King’s campaign to break the grip of segregation, reached its violent culmination.

It’s known as a modern-day hub of progressivism, but its past is one of exclusion.  

The border blurred the stark dividing line between white and black in America, something that Americans like William Ellis used to their advantage.

Racial covenants and housing discrimination in 20th century Minneapolis.

Even Winston Churchill needed a doctor's excuse to get out of Prohibition.