America: Our Defining Hours Archives ‑ History.com

How Crude Smallpox Inoculations Helped George Washington Win the War

When George Washington took command of the Continental Army in 1775, America was fighting a war on two fronts: one for independence from the British, and a second for survival against smallpox. Because Washington knew the ravages of the disease firsthand, he understood that the smallpox virus, then an invisible enemy, could cripple his army […]

How Lincoln and Grant’s Partnership Won the Civil War

Abraham Lincoln was disappointed by most of his generals—but not Ulysses S. Grant.

How FDR’s ‘Fireside Chats’ Helped Calm a Nation in Crisis

When Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated on March 4, 1933, the United States was entering the fourth year of the Great Depression, the worst economic downturn in the nation’s history. The stock market had fallen a staggering 75 percent from 1929 levels, and one in every four workers was unemployed. In the weeks before Roosevelt […]

How Detroit Factories Retooled During WWII to Defeat Hitler

America’s largest industry shifted from making cars to bombers, tanks and more—at unparalleled speed.

11 Little‑Known Facts About George Washington

1. Washington had only a grade‑school education. The first president’s formal schooling ended when he was 11 years old, after his father died. That event cut young George off from the opportunity to be educated abroad in England, a privilege that had been afforded to his older half‑brothers. Washington’s mother never remarried, forcing the adolescent […]

How George Washington Used Spies to Win the American Revolution

How important was George Washington’s network of spies to winning the American Revolution? It’s hard to imagine that the fate of the American cause would rest so heavily in the hands of a tailor, an enslaved double agent—or a judge’s wife who sent surreptitious signals on her laundry line. But as General Washington struggled to […]

6 Strategies Harriet Tubman and Others Used to Escape Along the Underground Railroad

Despite the horrors of slavery, it was no easy decision to flee. Escaping often involved leaving behind family and heading into the complete unknown, where harsh weather and lack of food might await. Then there was the constant threat of capture. So‑called slave catchers and their dogs roamed both sides of the Mason‑Dixon line, nabbing […]

10 Ways the Transcontinental Railroad Changed America

There was a time when traveling from the East Coast to the West Coast meant riding for months in a horse‑drawn wagon or stagecoach, or sailing southward to Panama and then crossing the Isthmus to board another ship for a journey up the other coast. But that all changed on May 10, 1869, when railroad […]

Did New Deal Programs Help End the Great Depression?

While the New Deal did have a lasting impact on the U.S. economy, other significant factors contributed toward ending the Great Depression by June 1938.

How Did the Gold Standard Contribute to the Great Depression?

The causes of the Great Depression were numerous, and after the stock market crash of 1929, a number of complex factors helped to create the conditions necessary for the longest and deepest economic downturn in modern history. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s decision to take the United States off the gold standard may have helped to ease […]

Why Frederick Douglass Matters

Frederick Douglass sits in the pantheon of Black history figures: Born into slavery, he made a daring escape north, wrote best‑selling autobiographies and went on to become one of the nation’s most powerful voices against human bondage. He stands as the most influential civil and human rights advocate of the 19th century. Perhaps his greatest […]

7 Things You Might Not Know About the Hoover Dam

1. The dam’s name was a source of controversy.Surveyors originally recommended the dam be constructed at Boulder Canyon, leading the initiative to be called the Boulder Canyon Dam Project. Even when Black Canyon later was deemed a better location for the new structure, it continued to be referred to as the Boulder Dam. However, on […]