The Dawes Act of 1887 broke up communally held tribal lands

In the 1950s, the federal government tried to dissolve tribal nations and end their sovereignty

A federal policy called "termination" withdrew official recognition from more than 100 tribes in the 1950s, cutting off federal services and subjecting reservation land to state taxes and sale.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 forcibly displaced tens of thousands of Native Americans

Signed by President Andrew Jackson, the act authorized the federal government to negotiate treaties relocating Native nations from their Southeastern homelands to lands west of the Mississippi, often by force.

A 1990 law forced museums and federal agencies to return Native remains and sacred objects

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act required federally funded institutions to inventory and return Native American human remains and sacred items to descendant tribes.

William Clark negotiated one-tenth of all ratified treaties between Native Americans and the US

After the expedition, Clark held key territorial and federal roles, overseeing western expansion and Native relations. While he expressed sympathy for displaced natives, he oversaw the transfer of millions of acres from Native nations to US control through various treaties.

Some tribes push for national parks to be under Indigenous control

Ojibwe author and academic David Treuer talks about his push for 80 million acres of American national park land to be returned to Indigenous stewards. Treuer proposes the government grant control of this land to a consortium of tribes, which would maintain and manage it for use by all Americans.

A 2020 Supreme Court ruling affirmed that nearly half of Oklahoma remains tribal land

In McGirt v. Oklahoma, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Muscogee Nation's reservation was never legally dissolved, thereby stripping Oklahoma of authority to prosecute tribal members for crimes committed on that land. Season One of the "This Land" podcast further explores how reservation court systems operate.

European diseases killed a massive share of the Native American population

After Western contact, epidemic diseases devastated Indigenous communities. By 1920, the Native American population of the US had fallen to roughly 270,000, compared with an estimated 1.2 to 18 million at the time of European arrival.

Native Americans were not granted US citizenship until 1924

The Indian Citizenship Act granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the US, more than 130 years after the Constitution's ratification. Even then, some states continued to deny Native Americans the right to vote for decades.

How the Navajo nation works

Tribal reservations control over 89,000 square miles of land in the US, roughly 2.5% of all US land. While individual tribes are recognized as sovereigns, they are not viewed as countries by the US government. Learn how the Navajo nation in...

Tribal casinos have generated billions in revenue

After Congress passed the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act in 1988, granting tribes the legal right to operate casinos on reservation land, tribal gaming expanded dramatically. Today, tribal gaming ranks among the largest revenue sources for participating tribes.

The US Army massacred close to 300 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in 1890

Fearing the Ghost Dance—a spiritual movement spreading across starving reservations—the Army surrounded a Lakota encampment at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. When a shot was fired during an attempted disarmament, it sparked chaos, and soldiers killed nearly 300 people.

Bills passed during the Civil War shaped postwar America

Despite the war with the South, Congress passed transformative laws like the Homestead Act and the Morrill Land-Grant College Act, which encouraged westward settlement and expanded higher education.

In 1975, a Major League Baseball clause that kept players legally tied to their teams after retirement was dismantled

Players fought the "reserve clause" for years, citing the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, but to no avail—in fact, the Supreme Court ruled professional baseball was neither interstate nor commerce in 1922. Players effectively unionized in 1966, and by 1975, an arbitration panel ruling led to the dismantling of the reserve clause, which had been the only antitrust exemption in professional sports.

The Detroit 59ers moved to Alaska to develop the land

After Alaska became a state in 1959, 21 Detroit families set out for the Last Frontier, intent on cultivating the land through the Homestead Act. The act offered free land in the state for anyone who met the requirements for developing its sparsely populated areas.

The US sent an iconic photographer to document the Japanese-American internment

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, 120,000 Japanese-Americans were removed from their homes and businesses and sent to internment camps across the American West and Arkansas. This nearly 15-minute video explores how the US government sent famed photographer Dorothea Lange to document the transfer and internment, only to restrict or impound many of her photos when they seemed less than positive.

The National Housing Act established the Federal Housing Administration

During the Great Depression, 1,000 homes were foreclosed on per day, and half of the mortgages across the country defaulted. To address this crisis, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Housing Act. It established the Federal Housing Administration, which is still around today and helps protect lenders and buyers.

Ranchos were large land grants in California to Spanish, Mexican leading families

They were typically given to leading families or retired soldiers as means of settling the land with loyal people. The hundreds of ranchos have since shaped land-use policy in the area, determining plots of major cities and ranches today.

That time General Ulysses Grant barred Jewish residents from the war zone

In 1862, General Ulysses S. Grant issued an order that banned all "Israelites" (meaning Jews) from a military zone consisting of parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Mississippi. After much outcry, the order was rescinded by President Abraham Lincoln and Grant feebly explained it was a misunderstanding. Learn more about this odd bit of history here,

Before the 16th Amendment, US tax law required direct taxes to be directly apportioned to a state's population

Due to these requirements, the federal government could not impose many direct taxes. Direct taxes include property and income taxes, whereas indirect taxes include duties and excises.

Zoning laws determine what can be built—and where—in every American community

Local governments use zoning to regulate land use. About 75% of residentially zoned land in American cities is designated for single-family homes only—a restriction that some experts blame for increasing housing costs and reducing affordability.

The common 'Three Sisters' mound-planting system used by natives

In the 17th century, Native Americans cultivated a three-plant combination of corn, beans, and squash—a symbiotic tradition dating back hundreds of years. The corn allowed the beans to climb, the beans fertilized the plants by extracting nitrogen from the air, and the squash leaves protected the soil and preserved moisture. Learn more about the tradition here.

The Louisiana Purchase nearly doubled America’s size in 1803

Acquired from France for $15M, the Louisiana Purchase added 828,000 square miles to the United States—stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rockies. US ambassadors in France signed the papers to buy the tract from the embattled Napoleon Bonaparte for a mere $15M before Jefferson learned the terms, due to the advantageous nature of the deal.

Congress created a special electoral commission to resolve the 1876 election

After multiple states sent competing electoral slates in 1876, Congress formed the Electoral Commission of 1877 to arbitrate the dispute, which ultimately awarded the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes and prompted later reforms to the electoral count process.

The Partitions of Poland led to the erasure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Political instability and foreign interference weakened the Commonwealth, which was eventually divided between Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Poland would not be re-established until after World War I and decades of imperial oppression.

'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was inspired by a drought

In 1886, Baum moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota, opening a general store and a newspaper. A drought afflicted the area, decimating crops. Baum moved, but his first 'Oz' book describes Dorothy's Kansas in a way that matched what he saw in South Dakota.

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

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.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

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

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

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

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

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

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.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

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

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

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

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.

Indefinite cloning of some endangered species may not sustain their longevity because cloning success rates decrease as genetic mutations accumulate.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.