In 1793, the dreaded Yellow Fever swept through Philadelphia. The deadly virus raced through the nation’s capital between August and November, killing at least 5,000 of the city’s inhabitants. Among the multi-racial group of ...
When the British defeated the French and their allies in the Seven Years’ War, they acquired vast new territories that expanded British America. Britain’s North America Empire grew to include New Brunswick in Canada, Florida ...
In late 1777, George Washington’s disappointing performance as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army was a source of growing concern among some army officers and members of Congress. While he had won important victories ...
What does the American Revolution look like from a British vantage point? How does that change the way we think about the origins of the United States, and major figures such as George Washington , Thomas Jefferson , or Georg...
On October 2, 1780, Major John André was executed as a spy on George Washington’s orders. The British officer had convinced American general Benedict Arnold to switch allegiances, but having been caught in the act, André was ...
Dr. Nadine Zimmerli recently joined The University of Virginia Press as its editor of History and Social Sciences books. A former editor at the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture , Zimmerli is a historian...
In the Declaration of Independence , Thomas Jefferson criticized George III for "Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us" in the years before the American Revolution. To hear Jefferson tell it, quartered troops had l...
On today’s show, veteran journalist and biographer Harlow Giles Unger talks to Jim Ambuske about revolutionary radical Thomas Paine , one of his predecessors in the newspaper business. He is the author of the new book, Thomas...
You may know him as Robert E. Lee’s father, but Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee was so much more. Born into a Virginia dynasty, the man who would become one of George Washington ’s protégés came of age with the American Revolut...
In the fall of 1789, George Washington ordered a printed copy of the Constitution along with the laws passed by the First Federal Congress. A book binder bound the printed sheets in leather and added the words "President of t...
How did a George Washington letter find a home Scotland? In this episode of Conversations at the Washington Library , Jim Ambuske talks with Rachel Hosker, deputy head of special collections and archives manager at the Univer...
In this episode, Jim Ambuske sits down with first year Ph.D. student Jordan Pellerito of the University of Missouri who is interning this summer at the Washington Library. Pellerito tells us about her Master’s degree work on ...