HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2025-06-19T16:18:53.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: What is Juneteenth, and why is it celebrated? A historian explains the significance of the holiday today
items: Who was the greatest President of the United States in history?
items: 13 famous cowboys and gunslingers from the history of the American Wild West
items: How Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election victory set America on the path to Civil War
items: What was a scalawag, and what does it have to do with the American Civil War?
items: The real history of Mary Surratt's controversial role in the Lincoln conspiracy
items: The slave who stole a ship and sailed to freedom
items: Gone with the Wind: how a 1936 novel explains modern America
items: The story of the American Civil War: 32 key moments in the landmark conflict
items: Opinion: Joyce Lee Malcolm on the history of gun ownership in America

What is Juneteenth, and why is it celebrated? A historian explains the significance of the holiday today
type: item
date: 2025-06-19T16:14:58.000Z
creator: Professor Adriane Lentz-Smith
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Civil rights
subject: Slavery
description: Each year on 19 June, millions across the US gather to commemorate the day in 1865 when the last enslaved African Americans finally learned of their freedom. Professor Adriane Lentz-Smith explores how the celebrations have evolved over the past 160 years – and the long campaign to have Juneteenth formally recognised as a federal holiday
encoded: Every summer, the Juneteenth holiday offers Americans an opportunity to celebrate visions of black freedom in the United States. ‘Juneteenth’ refers to 19 June 1865 – the day that victorious federal troops read out a General Order to the inhabitants of Texas’s Galveston Island declaring that “all slaves are free” – but enslaved people knew the date was a bit arbitrary. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had ended slavery in the Confederate states more than two years prior, and the ratification of the 13th amendment six months later would end it throughout the US. Emancipation came to the South not as a dramatic, singular event but, instead, agonisingly slowly over space and time. Yet, for all the news that black Texans had passed to each other about slavery and the Confederacy being on the ropes in the years between the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union victory, slaveholders in the Confederacy’s western frontier held fast to their regime until the Union Army’s arrival made emancipation enforceable. Within weeks, the more than 250,000 black people enslaved across Texas began seizing their freedom. Within a year, they had begun commemorating it. And by 1900, historian Quintard Taylor notes, Juneteenth had become more widely celebrated among black Texans than the Fourth of July. Read more | Abraham Lincoln: the greatest US president? Resistance through celebration The holiday served as part of freedpeople’s self-fashioning. Juneteenth is now a national American holiday, but it began as a Texas Emancipation Day, conceived and institutionalised by the formerly enslaved and their descendants. Black women’s clubs, churches and civic organisations marshalled resources to secure spaces for public celebration. In Houston in 1872, for example, they purchased 10 acres that they named ‘Emancipation Park’ and began holding annual celebrations. Black residents in Austin did the same in the early 1900s. In these cities and elsewhere, African Americans celeb…

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Who was the greatest President of the United States in history?
type: item
date: 2025-01-23T10:59:20.000Z
subject: General History
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: US presidents
description: Seven historians put forward their nominations for the most accomplished leader to have sat in the White House
encoded: George Washington In office: 1789–97 Party affiliation: none Nominated by: Thomas Kidd, historian and author of Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh (Yale, 2022) George Washington was the first president in US history – and I’m nominating him as the best, too. I am basing this on his success as a leader, his ability to negotiate conflict in his administration, and most importantly the example he set for future presidents. Americans at the time of the Revolutionary War were enamoured with the ideal of the virtuous republican leader, in the model of the ancient Roman general Cincinnatus. Washington was no perfect man, of course, and like many elite southern Americans he was a slaveholder. But in politics he came the closest to manifesting the republican ideal of any American president. Washington became president after serving as the commander of the Continental Army during the fight for independence from the British. His leadership of the army was not uniformly positive, but his tenacity ultimately led to a successful outcome. Many suspected he might simply remain in the position as a kind of benevolent autocrat, but he resigned from the army in late 1783, returning to his Mount Vernon home in Virginia. Befitting the respect that he commanded, Washington was chosen to preside over the Constitutional Convention of 1787, where the US Constitution was drafted. Then he became the first president to be elected under that Constitution in 1789, in a unanimous vote of the electoral college. Washington dealt with major political conflicts in his administration, especially between the treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, and secretary of state, Thomas Jefferson, who bitterly disagreed over economic policy and the direction of the new republic. Washington was largely (if not completely) able to rise above the partisan bickering, and always believed that the republic and its leaders needed to manifest consensus for the public good. He assiduously reached out to m…

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13 famous cowboys and gunslingers from the history of the American Wild West
type: item
date: 2024-12-30T05:00:13.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Evergreen
subject: Historical people
description: Saddle up and discover the most famous cowboys who shaped the American Frontier, exploring how their stories intertwined with the broader history of the Wild West
encoded: Through the lens of idealised romanticism, the Old West continues to capture the imagination as a wild and untamed frontier ready to be harnessed by those with the determination, courage and grit required to endure it. And despite the dangers – from an unforgiving terrain to the pervading lawlessness – there were great opportunities for a handful of big personalities to make a name for themselves. They robbed banks and stagecoaches, proved their speed and skill with a pistol in a gunfight, and embraced the chaos and change of an era marked by clashes between incoming settlers and Native Americans, farmers and businessman, the past and the future. They are some of the most famous figures in American history: cowboys. What was a cowboy? Symbols of the Wild West, cowboys could be all things, from frontiersmen, ranchers, farmers, wranglers, marshals and, of course, outlaws. It was an identity as much as it was an outright occupation. Beyond the bluster of the ubiquitous anti-heroes of Hollywood movies, their real-life stories provide insight into the broader forces underlying the expansion of the American frontier. Through their deeds, we can see the land disputes, the end of indigenous sovereignty, the rise of the railroad, and the slow march of federal law into a space once thought to be uncontrollable. 13 famous cowboys from the American Wild West Billy the Kid Jesse James Wyatt Earp Butch Cassidy Calamity Jane Wild Bill Hickok Doc Holliday Bass Reeves Belle Starr Black Bart John Wesley Hardin Bill Doolin Charles Goodnight Billy the Kid c1859–1881 Is there any name that evokes the outlaws of the Wild West more than Billy the Kid? Born Henry McCarty, the gunslinger was an orphan by his early teens and quickly turned to crime to survive. He went by a number of aliases, including William H Bonney and Kid Antrim (the latter a reference to his slight build and youthful features), before making his first recorded killing in 1877 at the age of 17. But it would be his involv…

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How Abraham Lincoln's 1860 election victory set America on the path to Civil War
type: item
date: 2024-11-04T11:09:23.000Z
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
description: Richard Carwardine explains why Lincoln's election victory in 1860 was so important and how he managed to trounce his rivals in the polls...
encoded: Q: What was the political prelude to the 1860 election? A: Ever since the drafting of America’s federal constitution of 1787, the question of slavery had given rise to political contention and compromise. In the early years of the new American nation, several northern states adopted statutes of emancipation, while new technology and the international demand for cotton gave slave labour deep roots in the south. Plantation agriculture spread from the Atlantic states into the Gulf region. As a result, slave numbers would grow to four million by 1860. Most Americans deemed that the constitution gave individual slave states alone the right to determine the future of their ‘peculiar institution’. However, the westward movement of settlers and the extension of the nation’s boundaries – through the purchase of Louisiana, the annexation of Texas, and the wresting of California and other parts of Mexico by force – prompted periodic crises over the status of slaveholding in the territories and the new states carved out of them. In 1820 and again in 1850 threats of civil war between North and South prompted compromise, while the Democrats and Whigs – the dominant national parties during the 1830s and 1840s – worked in the main to keep the issue at bay. But in the 1850s it arose again. By then growing intransigence, and each faction’s sense of its moral and social superiority, put political compromise beyond easy reach. Read more | The story of the American Civil War: 32 key moments in the landmark conflict Q: Why does the presidential election of 1860 matter? A: Abraham Lincoln’s victory in November 1860 as the Republican candidate for the White House forever changed the relationship between the American government and the institution of slavery. It wasn’t that Lincoln was the first nominee for the presidency to run on an antislavery platform. Minority parties, alarmed by the increasing entrenchment of plantation slavery, had fielded emancipationists in every presidential elect…

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What was a scalawag, and what does it have to do with the American Civil War?
type: item
date: 2024-07-30T14:21:29.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Evergreen
description: Today, we use the term ‘scallywag’ to describe a distrustful rascal, but it stems from a different word, ‘scalawag’, which has its roots in the aftermath of the American Civil War
encoded: Immediately following the American Civil War (1861–1865), during the period known as the Reconstruction era, a new pejorative term came into use. A ‘scalawag’ described a white Southerner who supported the US government’s plan to reorganise the 11 states that had seceded from the Union (the Confederacy). The origin of the word dates back further, to at least the 1840s or possibly the 1850s, when it initially referred to a worthless farm animal. Southern supporters of the Democratic Party and journalists later popularised its association with Southern-born white supporters of the Republican Party during Reconstruction, viewing them as traitors to the South. Reconstruction refers to the period following the civil war that aimed to rebuild the South, integrate freed African Americans into US society and reform Southern states’ governments. It involved federal efforts to enforce civil rights and reshape the political landscape and was opposed by Southern Democrats who resisted changes to their traditional social order. What kind of people were accused of being scalawags? Scalawags came from diverse backgrounds and included Unionists (those who had supported the North during the Civil War), secessionists (advocates of the breakaway Confederacy), former slaveholders and Confederate veterans. Small landholding farmers who had long resented the hegemony of the slave-owning planter class over Southern society, accounted for many scalawags. These farmers had also mostly opposed the region’s secession from the Union. Read more | A battle of wills: why the South lost the American Civil War Reconstruction was welcomed as conducive to their interests and an obstacle to the restoration of the antebellum system of slavery. They were driven by a desire to modernise the South – that is, to remake it in the image of the Northern states. Others were simply opportunistic, seizing the chance to gain power and influence in the new political landscape. How did scalawags differ from carpetb…

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The real history of Mary Surratt's controversial role in the Lincoln conspiracy
type: item
date: 2024-03-22T09:02:03.000Z
creator: James Osborne
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Historical people
subject: Trends-Entertainment
description: Mary Surratt’s involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln, as seen in the new Apple TV+ series Manhunt, is fraught with controversy and ambiguity. What is the complicated truth about her role in the plot, how much did she know, and was she really guilty?
encoded: Mary Surratt is known for her contentious role in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, in 1865. Prior to Lincoln’s murder, Surratt would have been regarded as an ordinary woman living a typical middle-class existence. However, her implication in John Wilkes Booth’s conspiracy to attack several members of the Union government – as well as Abraham Lincoln – led to Surratt becoming the first woman to be executed by the federal government in the United States. Now, with the release of Apple TV+ historical drama Manhunt, a seven-part series focussing on the immediate aftermath of Lincoln’s assassination at the effective end of the American Civil War and the pursuit of the conspirators by officials including Edwin Stanton, we explore the true story of Mary Surratt’s role in the conspiracy, including the ambiguity as to her guilt. The true story of Mary Surratt’s involvement in the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln Mary Surratt, born in the early 1820s, was a widow who owned a boarding house in Washington DC. She had moved there in 1864, after encountering substantial financial difficulties following the death of her husband in 1862. Her boarding house was used by John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators to plot the abduction and assassination of President Lincoln, and by Confederate agents more broadly. However, it wasn’t the conspirators’ use of Surratt’s boarding house as a place to organise themselves that condemned Surratt. Rather, it was her close personal connections to the conspirators, quotes attributed to her, along with her suspicious activity, that established her involvement in the plot. Mary Surratt’s son, John Surrat Jr, was a confidant of John Wilkes Booth, and he introduced Booth to his mother. She saw Booth regularly coming in and out of her boarding house, which became a hive of Confederate activity. Additional evidence against Mary Surratt, in the trial that led to her conviction and eventual death, further cemented her as a figure who w…

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The slave who stole a ship and sailed to freedom
type: item
date: 2022-10-17T11:58:13.000Z
creator: Jonny Wilkes
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Historical people
subject: Slavery
description: Robert Smalls pulled off one of the most courageous escapes from slavery in history, and followed that by becoming a war hero and trailblazing politician
encoded: The steamship slowly drifted across the harbour, as quietly as the paddlewheels slapping against the water and the chugging and grinding of the engine allowed. A fog helped to hide them, and those on board knew it was imperative to stay inconspicuous. They were on a secret and dangerous journey that dark May night, one that could change their lives – or end them. While there were no officers, a man in the captain’s coat and hat stood on the deck. His name was Robert Smalls, and on this stolen ship he intended to sail himself and everyone below decks to freedom from slavery. Smalls had been born into slavery 23 years earlier, on 5 April 1839, to a domestic named Lydia Polite in Beaufort, South Carolina. He actually had it easier, relatively, than the other enslaved children – possibly since his master, Henry McKee, may have been his father – but his mother wanted him to understand the horrors faced by black people in the United States. Her harsh lessons included putting him to work in the fields and forcing him to witness a whipping. Download your essential guide to black British history, from BBC History Revealed Available to HistoryExtra subscribers, join us here The man planning to commandeer a 150-feet sidewheel steamship, the CSS Planter, was shaped by these experiences. He was also one of the best pilots in the harbour, who knew the waters so well that he could navigate the sandbars and shallows even in the dark. This would be handy as his escape would be in the early hours. While his white officers had refused to call him a pilot, instead using the term ‘wheelman’ for a slave, Smalls was plotting to be the captain on his own voyage. He would be escaping Charleston. Family commitments Smalls had been 12 when his master first sent him to the town. Over the years, he worked a number of jobs, from waiter at a fancy hotel to a rigger and stevedore, before being enlisted on the crew of the Planter. Smalls enjoyed being near the water and, what’s more, he was allowed…

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Gone with the Wind: how a 1936 novel explains modern America
type: item
date: 2022-08-03T11:25:21.000Z
creator: Rachel Dinning
subject: 20th Century
subject: 21st Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Sarah Churchwell discusses the controversial legacy of Gone With The Wind and what it can reveal about American history and culture today
encoded: Professor Sarah Churchwell discusses her new book The Wrath to Come, which re-examines the controversial legacy of Margaret Mitchell’s immensely popular 1936 novel Gone With The Wind. Speaking with Rachel Dinning, she considers what it can tell us about American history and culture today, from the mythmaking that sprung up following the Civil War to the origins of modern debates over racism and the far right in the United States. Sarah Churchwell is the author of The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells (Apollo, 2022) Buy now on Bookshop.org Buy now on Amazon Buy now on Waterstones

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The story of the American Civil War: 32 key moments in the landmark conflict
type: item
date: 2022-07-11T15:00:22.000Z
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
description: Adam IP Smith charts the events of the American Civil War in 32 key moments, beginning with the rising tensions between the North and South and ending with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln...
encoded: What caused the American Civil War? With the Declaration of Independence in 1776, 13 former British colonies became the United States of America, but by the 1830s it was clear the new nation was divided. Adam IP Smith explains how the issue of slavery, above all, created discord between north and south, and forced political tension to rise... The cause of the trouble: slavery At the time of the American revolution, it was legal to hold human beings as ‘property’ in all the British colonies that rebelled. But in the wake of the revolution, slavery was abolished in New England and, gradually, in the mid-Atlantic states as well. In the south though, where most enslaved people were held, abolitionism stalled and slavery expanded rapidly. Between the revolution and 1860, the slave population increased from 700,000 to nearly 4 million, geographically concentrated in the south. The increase was driven by the profits to be made from the sale of raw cotton – and to a lesser extent sugar, rice and tobacco – on world markets. As Abraham Lincoln was later to say, “all knew” that “somehow” slavery was the cause of the war. This is not the same as claiming that northerners and southerners went to war in 1861 with the desire to attack or defend slavery as a prime motivation: most did not. However, it became increasingly difficult to sustain a nation divided, “half slave and half free” in Lincoln’s phrase. Read more | Lincoln and slavery: "If I could save the union without freeing any slave, I would" Americans in 1861 had much in common with one another: a reverence for the Founding Fathers and a shared belief in freedom, opportunity and providential God. Most people, both north and south, worked on the land; almost all white folk assumed racial superiority, whatever their views on slavery. However, slavery shaped the south in ways that made the north see it as a threatening and alien society, just as northern attacks on slavery pushed southerners to see Yankees as their enemies. A…

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Opinion: Joyce Lee Malcolm on the history of gun ownership in America
type: item
date: 2022-06-20T08:24:12.000Z
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Column
description: In the aftermath of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers, historian Joyce Lee Malcolm examines the history of gun ownership in America and asks: why is the right to be armed such an emotional one for Americans?
encoded: On 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton walked into a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland and opened fire on the children and their teachers. In the aftermath of that awful tragedy, the British government prohibited the right to own a handgun in the UK, confiscating those in private hands. Last month, another mass shooting shocked us, this time in a Texas school taking the lives of more innocent victims. And while there have been calls for more control of firearms, there will be no such prohibition. Indeed, the numbers of guns and gun owners in the past three years has hit new heights. The question arises, why do Americans continue to have so many personal guns despite instances of mindless violence? The short answer is: self-defence. The right to be armed The American right to be armed is a legacy of the article in the English Bill of Rights of 1689, which was passed to assure English subjects their rights would be protected when William and Mary ascended the throne. That document included the right of Protestants subjects to “have Armes for their defence Suitable to their condition and as allowed by Law.” While the English right was broadened by the 19th century to include all subjects regardless of their religion or class, it was not entrenched, and in the years after the First World War it was whittled away despite little gun crime. Now, carrying any item for self-defence is illegal in Britain on the theory that society will protect you. But of course, it can’t, and the trade-off is the belief that public safety demands that sacrifice. The American right to be armed is entrenched in the American Constitution’s Bill of Rights of 1791. Its guarantee has also been whittled down, but not abolished. There were restrictions on ownership of firearms by black people in the south before and even after the Civil War, and restrictions in the north in the early 20th century, from fears of the immigrants pouring in from southern and eastern Europe. But Americans believed, as the …

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