The Dred Scott decision denied citizenship to people of African descent

The Dred Scott decision denied African Americans citizenship, upheld slavery, and marked the first use of judicial review since Marbury v. Madison

This page explores the case, providing information on Dred Scott and his case before the Supreme Court. Explore the implications of one of the most critical cases in the history of the court.

The 14th Amendment established birthright citizenship and equal protection under law

Ratified in 1868, the 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people born in the United States and required states to provide equal protection—overturning the Dred Scott decision, which had declared that Black Americans could never be citizens or claim constitutional rights.

Early American citizenship was defined inconsistently by individual states

The original US Constitution did not define national citizenship, leaving it to the states to apply their own rules. This led to inconsistent and often exclusionary standards across the country until after the Civil War.

US westward expansion—and the status of slavery in the new territories—was a major cause of the American Civil War

The addition of new western lands forced the nation to confront whether slavery would spread beyond the South. Each debate over the admission of a new state sharpened the divide between free and slaveholding regions.

The Nationality Act of 1790 restricted new citizenship to 'free white persons'

The first federal citizenship law limited naturalization to white immigrants, excluding enslaved people, Indigenous communities, and most non-Europeans.

Plessy v. Ferguson legalized segregation until Brown v. Board of Education overturned it

In 1896, the Supreme Court upheld racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine, enabling decades of discrimination. This explainer traces how Brown later ruled school segregation unconstitutional and reshaped civil rights law.

According to Confederate leaders, the defense of slavery was the primary reason for secession

Confederate leaders cited slavery as the reason for secession. Vice President Alexander Stephens called it the Confederacy's "cornerstone," built on "the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man."

The end of Reconstruction paved the way for Jim Crow segregation

After federal troops withdrew in 1877, white Democrats regained control of Southern governments, dismantled Reconstruction reforms, and imposed segregation laws. By the 1890s, Jim Crow statutes had entrenched racial discrimination and Black disenfranchisement across the South.

What impact did WWI have on the US civil rights movement?

One of the great hypocrisies in American history involve the expectation of African-Americans to defend liberty in several wars while being deprived of it when they returned home to, as this article puts it "disfranchisement, segregation, debt peonage and racial violence." The writer reflects on World War I and how it affected the fight for civil rights in the USA.

Approximately 180,000 African Americans served in Union forces

About 180,000 Black soldiers—roughly 10% of the Union army—served in the United States Colored Troops after 1863. Despite lower pay and discrimination, they were crucial to the Union victory.

Black Americans were systematically excluded from juries for much of US history

Literacy tests, poll taxes, and even explicit laws kept Black Americans off juries until well into the 20th century. The Jury Selection and Service Act of 1968 mandated that federal juries reflect a fair cross-section of the community, though racial disparities in jury selection persist.

Francis Scott Key was a slaveholder and anti-abolitionist

As a Christian, Key was opposed to slavery in principle, though he owned slaves and was opposed to abolition. His anti-slavery work was limited to the American Colonization Society, which believed slaves should be freed and then returned to Africa, despite Black Americans opposing the idea. Later, he turned into an anti-slavery activist.

The abolitionist movement long predated the Civil War

Beginning in the late 18th century, abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and Sojourner Truth campaigned through newspapers, lectures, and political action to end slavery.

John Marshall owned enslaved people and ruled against them in slavery cases

Though Marshall wrote that slavery was "contrary to the law of nature," he enslaved nearly 200 people at his death in 1835 and ruled against enslaved claimants in several cases. His will offered conditional emancipation to Robin Spurlock, his first slave.

The nullification crisis tested whether states could defy federal law

In the 1830s, South Carolina declared federal tariffs void within its borders. President Andrew Jackson threatened military force, Congress passed a compromise tariff, and the episode ended with federal authority prevailing over state nullification.

One of the earliest Memorial Day ceremonies was held by newly freed Black Americans in South Carolina

On May 1, 1865, roughly 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves, paraded around a Charleston racetrack where Union prisoners had been buried, predating the first national commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery by three years.

The 13th Amendment's criminal exception enabled new forms of forced labor

Southern states exploited the amendment's clause allowing slavery "as punishment for crime" to arrest thousands of Black Americans on minor charges, leasing them to private employers through convict labor systems that persisted for decades.

The origins and growth of the Juneteenth holiday

The American holiday of Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of African American slaves, a process which unfolded over the four years of the Civil War and several months afterward. June 19 took on special significance as the day Union officials proclaimed slaves free in Texas in 1865, the last holdout after the Civil War ended. Roughly 4 million people were freed from slavery as a result of emancipation. Read this brief article summarizing the holiday's development.

Interracial and same-sex marriages have both been illegal at certain times during US history

June 12 marks Loving Day, the date when interracial marriage was legalized in 1967. A brave Virginia couple fought back against anti-miscegenation laws, which were finally struck down by the Supreme Court. The Court also ruled for the protection of same-sex marriages in 2015.

The Supreme Court limited federal judges' power to issue nationwide injunctions in 2025

In a 2025 decision arising from litigation over a presidential order on birthright citizenship, the Supreme Court held that individual federal judges may not nationwide block executive policies—curbing the use of sweeping injunctions and reshaping how constitutional challenges proceed through the courts.

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.

The Great Migration spread jazz to various parts of the country

The large-scale migration of Black Americans looking to escape Jim Crow laws in the South began in 1915 and helped bring New Orleans music to other parts of the country, including Chicago, New York, Kansas City, Detroit, and Los Angeles.

Roosevelt resigned from a prominent women's organization after it barred a Black singer from performing

When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Marian Anderson to perform at their Washington hall in 1939 because she was Black, Roosevelt publicly cut ties with the group. She worked to arrange an alternative outdoor concert for Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, which drew a crowd of 75,000.

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.

The Supreme Court ruled that burning the American flag is protected speech

In Texas v. Johnson (1989), the court held, 5-4, that flag burning is a form of symbolic political expression protected by the First Amendment—one of the most controversial free-speech rulings in American history.

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 US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

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 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.

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.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

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.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

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

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

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.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

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.'

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'