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

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

Polling shows that public opinion of Dr. King shifted dramatically after his death: viewed unfavorably by most Americans in the mid-1960s, more than 80% of the public now believes he had a positive impact on our country, according to data from Pew and Gallup.

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.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. developed a disciplined philosophy of nonviolence

Dr. King defined nonviolence as a discipline: resistance to injustice, love over hate, redemptive suffering, and faith in justice—drawing moral guidance from the Christian Gospel and strategic methods from Mahatma Gandhi.

Listen to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. read his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail

Written in 1963 while jailed for nonviolent protest, Dr. King’s letter defends civil disobedience, rejects calls for patience, and argues that unjust laws must be confronted to expose injustice and force meaningful change.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'Mountaintop' speech became his final public address

Delivered in Memphis the night before his assassination, Dr. King’s 'Mountaintop' speech reflected on mortality, reaffirmed nonviolence, and framed the Civil Rights struggle as part of a longer moral struggle beyond his own life.

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.

Martin Luther King Jr. invoked the Declaration to demand equality

This article examines how Martin Luther King Jr. drew on the language and ideals of the Declaration of Independence to frame the Civil Rights Movement as a continuation of the nation’s founding promises.

Watch the full video of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream Speech'

Delivered at the 1963 March on Washington, Dr. King’s speech tied civil rights demands to America’s founding ideals. It helped shape public memory of the movement before a crowd of more than 250,000 and millions watching nationwide.

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.

The FBI ran a covert campaign to discredit Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

From 1963 to 1968, the FBI surveilled Dr. King with wiretaps, hotel bugs, informants, and anonymous threats, citing concerns about Communist influence—an effort later revealed through declassified files and documented in the film MLK/FBI.

Dylan opened for Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington

The apex of Dylan’s era as a “protest singer” was his appearance, alongside collaborator and sometimes-lover Joan Baez, at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was the same demonstration where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Dylan performed four songs, including a scathing version of “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” a ballad about Medgar Evers, an activist who was murdered at his home in Mississippi by a white supremacist.

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.

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.

Hear about the violent week after Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination

This podcast from The Atlantic revisits the seven days after Dr. King was killed in 1968, when widespread violent unrest swept the country and reshaped the direction and legacy of the Civil Rights movement.

The US never formally declared war in Vietnam

Instead of formally declaring war, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964, granting President Johnson broad authority to use military force. The resolution became the legal basis for escalating US involvement without an official declaration of war.

Malcolm X's 'Ballot or the Bullet' speech emphasized the political power of Black voters

The 1964 speech addressed institutionalized racism in the United States and urged Black Americans to exercise their right to vote or be prepared to defend themselves if democracy continued to fail them. It is lauded as one of the most unflinching speeches from the Civil Rights movement.

The controversy behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial

It's now a standard stop for tourists visiting Washington, DC, but before it was built the Vietnam Veterans Memorial triggered an internecine battle between the war's veterans, some of whom believed the planned memorial was offensive. This short documentary recounts the controversy and the ultimate triumph of the memorial, which helped change the country's impression of the war and its soldiers.

Britain's PM signaled the acceptance of African decolonization in 1960

This audio excerpt captures Harold Macmillan’s 1960 “Wind of Change” speech, in which he acknowledged rising African nationalism and declared that Britain would not resist decolonization—a pivotal moment signaling the Empire’s accelerating retreat from the continent.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation and discrimination nationwide

The Civil Rights Act, signed into law in 1964, prohibited racial segregation in public accommodations and ended discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin in employment, while also strengthening protections in education. It established protections enforced across federally funded programs.

The opposition party to the president first delivered a televised response in 1966

Television networks first granted airtime to the out-of-power party in 1966, with Republicans Everett Dirksen and then-Representative Gerald R. Ford delivering the inaugural response. See a list of each opposition response to the State of the Union since then.

The Kent State massacre sparked a nationwide student strike

In 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on Kent State University students—peacefully protesting the Vietnam War—and killed four. The tragedy led to more widespread nationwide protests, shutting down more than 200 colleges and universities. The event led to a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a slain and grieving student.

Marlon Brando used his 1973 Oscar win to protest the US government's treatment of Native Americans

Brando declined his best actor award at the Academy Awards, sending Chiricahua Apache activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place to read a statement protesting Hollywood's depiction of Native people and the federal siege underway at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

'Dr. Strangelove' is widely considered the best satirical film

Stanley Kubrick’s satire about nuclear war came just two years after the Cuban Missile Crisis and spoke to Americans still coming to terms with the possibility of nuclear annihilation. In 1989, the Library of Congress included it among the first 25 films preserved in the National Film Registry, a repository for the greatest achievements in cinema.

A list of reasons against dropping the bomb on Japan

One of the perennial moral debates, the dropping of nuclear bombs on Japanese cities prompted strong, polarizing reactions at the time. This article breaks down one side of the argument: that the bomb was designed for defense, using it was illegal and racist, and that there were alternatives.

Sartre eventually denounced communism

The French philosopher was a long-time ardent supporter of communism and the USSR. He finally spoke out against the movement with the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, saying that the move was "made possible by 12 years of terror and imbecility."

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

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

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

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.

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

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

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

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

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

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.'

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

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

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

See the evolution of Ebola vaccine and treatment development.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.