Individuals featured in primary materials.
Drawing on contemporary newspaper reports and eyewitness accounts, this article reconstructs the final days of the Pahlavi dynasty in January and February 1979, from the Shah’s tearful departure to the collapse of his government and the birth of the Islamic Republic.
Drawing on contemporary accounts, this article recounts the life and assassination of Chicago Mayor Carter Harrison Sr. in 1893, set against the backdrop of the World’s Columbian Exposition and the city’s Gilded Age politics.
Drawing on contemporary cables, speeches, and official reports, this article reconstructs the 1961 assassination of Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, revealing the roles of Belgian officials, the CIA, and Katangan separatists—and the shockwaves that rippled across Africa and the world.
Drawing on contemporary reports, parliamentary records, and eyewitness accounts, this article reconstructs how Lord Mountbatten’s appointment as the last Viceroy of India and his decisive handling of partition were experienced and understood at the time.
A primary-source-driven account of George Wallace’s January 14, 1963 inaugural address, the moment he declared ‘segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever’ and ignited a rallying cry for the segregationist cause.
Drawing on contemporary reports, eyewitness accounts, and archival records, this article reconstructs the daily dangers, censorship, and moral dilemmas faced by the roughly 271 correspondents from 19 countries who covered the Korean War.
Drawing on letters from Florida, interviews from Midwest cities, and a Saskatchewan farm woman’s diary, this article reveals how women documented daily struggles and devised survival strategies during the Great Depression.
Drawing on contemporary accounts and the landmark history Crying the News, this article explores the lives of America’s newsboys—their labor, their struggles, and their symbolic power—from the 1830s to the 1930s, culminating in the 1899 strike against Hearst.
Drawing on U.S. Embassy telegrams and UPI wire reports from June and November 1965, this article reconstructs how a 34-year-old air force commander, Nguyen Cao Ky, seized the premiership of South Vietnam, the fears and expectations that surrounded his rise, and the fragile political landscape he inherited.
In the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake, women in San Francisco’s relief camps took on roles of leadership, protest, and daily survival. From a diamond-adorned matron leading a protest to an Irish working-class mother defying eviction, their stories reveal a city where class and race shaped the disaster’s aftermath.