Section 1. Purpose. On August 7, 1789, 236 years ago, President George Washington signed into law a bill establishing the United States Department of War to oversee the operation and maintenance of ...

Many of these men, once bound in slavery, were also being documented for the first time, impacting generations to come.

NMAH copy Purchased from the NMAH Library Endowment. "A Pulitzer Prize-winning historian's provocative reinterpretation of the eight decades surrounding the Civil War (and leading into the twentieth ...

The United States has a long history of presidentially initiated military actions conducted under executive authority without a formal declaration of war from Congress, as the Constitution vests such ...

The past eight decades have been the longest period without a war between great powers since the Roman Empire. This anomalous era of extended peace came after two catastrophic wars, each of which was ...

The publication of a diplomat’s confidential criticism of President William McKinley helped propel the United States into the ...