Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was unpopular with most Americans during his lifetime

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. publicly denounced the Vietnam War in 1967

In a 1967 speech, Dr. King comprehensively condemned the US war in Vietnam, linking militarism, racism, and poverty—a break that cost him allies and drew backlash from political leaders and major media outlets.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. shifted his focus toward economic justice in his final years

In the late 1960s, Dr. King increasingly emphasized economic inequality, labor rights, and poverty, culminating in the Poor People’s Campaign, which argued that civil rights gains were incomplete without financial security.

Conspiracy theories persist around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 assassination

Despite multiple investigations—including FBI inquiries and a 1979 House committee report—questions and conspiracy theories have continued to surround the 1968 assassination of Dr. King long after his assassin’s conviction.

Creating Martin Luther King Jr. Day took 15 years of political advocacy

After Dr. King’s assassination, activists—including his wife Coretta Scott King—spent 15 years pushing Congress to create a federal holiday in his honor, facing repeated resistance before it was finally signed into law in 1983.

Malcolm X’s relationship with Dr. King gradually became less contentious over time

Malcolm X initially rejected Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent approach and integrationist strategy. Still, he gradually acknowledged shared goals, signaling a late-life openness to cooperation within the broader Civil Rights movement.

See the individuals who inspired the ideology and practice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This resource examines how Dr. King drew inspiration from figures such as Thomas Carlyle, Henry David Thoreau, and Mahatma Gandhi, integrating global literature, moral philosophy, and nonviolence into his speeches and activism.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an avid fan of Star Trek

Dr. King praised the show’s vision of an integrated future and convinced African-American actress Nichelle Nichols to remain on the show, arguing her role offered a rare, powerful image of racial equality on American television.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1964

At the age of 35, Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolent leadership in the Civil Rights movement, making him the youngest recipient at the time.

The most famous lines of the 'I Have a Dream' speech were improvised

Though largely scripted, Martin Luther King Jr. shifted off text mid-speech after gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out, “Tell them about the dream, Martin,” prompting the improvised passage that became the most iconic moment of his public legacy.

Views on the Nixon pardon softened over time

Americans initially rejected Ford's September 1974 pardon of Nixon—38% approved it versus 53% disapproved—but by 1986, a slim majority (54%) believed it was the right call, showing that public sentiment softened over more than a decade after the controversy.

Dolly Parton is far more popular in the US than the world's politicians

An April 2026 survey conducted by the University of Massachusetts and YouGov found that 70% of the 1,000 Americans polled had a positive impression of the country icon. The next closest figure was former US President Barack Obama (50% favorable) and Vladimir Zelensky, the president of Ukraine (35% favorable).

Half of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the IRS, while 38% have a favorable view

From July 1 to July 7, 2024, Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 9,424 adults to gauge the public's attitudes about the federal government, including government agencies and departments. Of 13 agencies, 10 had net favorable ratings of 15 percentage points or more. Topping the list were the National Park Service (76% favorable), the US Postal Service (72%) and NASA (67%).

Norman Rockwell had a 21st-century resurgence

For decades, he was written off by the art world as a simplistic commercial artist, but critics began to reconsider Rockwell's work many years after his death. Arguably, the height of that resurgence came in 2011, when President Barack Obama hung "The Problem We All Live With" (on loan from the Norman Rockwell Museum) in the White House to mark the 50th anniversary of Ruby Bridges' desegregation walk.

Magic Johnson's announcing he had HIV changed public perception of the disease

When Lakers superstar Magic Johnson announced he had HIV in 1991, the disease was highly misunderstood. Commissioner David Stern had behind-the-scenes conversations with Johnson about publicly handling his eventual announcement, leading to the start of the condition's destigmatization.

Travel in time to how people felt about major US events

Pollsters track more than just politics: From civil rights to war declarations, go back and see how people felt about major events in the US with this timeline.

Only 34% of Americans supported the Apollo program in 1967

After a fire killed three astronauts on the launchpad of Apollo 1, the public became ambivalent about funding the multibillion-dollar program until the successful moon landing in 1969. The landers alone cost $388M, while each spacesuit cost $100,000.

Abraham Lincoln received only 40% of the popular vote in the 1860 election

Lincoln's 1860 victory came entirely from Northern and Western states, as his name was excluded from most Southern ballots. The outcome highlighted the deep divisions and regional polarization in the country.

After surging in popularity, King began using a pseudonym

King was a rarity in the '70s: a genre writer with a vast mainstream audience. He was so popular, in fact, that he began releasing books under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, a ploy that allowed him to write outside the horror genre without attracting the displeasure of his massive fan base.

Most Americans don’t want a new national anthem

Despite some citizens voicing distaste for the composition of the song or Key’s history as a slaveholder, the overwhelming majority of Americans want to keep “The Star-Spangled banner.” A 2020 YouGov poll of over 25,000 American adults found that 60% believe it should remain as the anthem.

How Kurt Cobain's suicide changed the media

Public health experts feared that the suicide of a high-profile figure, especially for young people, would lead to a rise in suicides across the country. The opposite turned out to be true: Suicide rates decreased. Specialists suggest that's due to the way Cobain's death was covered, with news organizations largely avoiding glorification and including crisis hotline information.

Most Americans are now dying at home, reversing 20th century trends

For most of the 21st and 20th centuries most Americans died in hospital settings. But in 2016, home-based deaths overtook hospitals; most Americans are now dying at home, likely fueled by individual preferences to die at home or to receive at-home palliative care.

Jazz's popularity inspired a moral panic

When jazz exploded in the 1920s, some believed the music's sudden popularity was the sign of a rotten nation, with one 1920 address at the University of Wisconsin proclaiming, "We are in deadly fear of the Jazz Devil, the demon which is consuming the country." Often, the connections were racialized, with columnists and preachers suggesting that jazz's Black artists were attempting to degrade white America.

Robert Oppenheimer became the face of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb

This feature explores Oppenheimer’s early life, the traits that made him central to the development of the atomic bomb, and how his later years were marked by tension between pride in his work and opposition to weapons of mass destruction.

'A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.'

- Jackie Robinson, the first Black MLB player (1919-1972)

In a 2012 poll, Brits named Washington as the kingdom's greatest military enemy

The poll by the UK's National Army Museum ranked Washington above Irish independence hero Michael Collins, France's Napoleon Bonaparte, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

11 people died from firework injuries in the US in 2024.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.