NewsInHistory Blog

While Northern readers were consumed by stories in their newspapers about the Civil War during the summer of 1862, they were startled to suddenly find accounts of an awful massacre of white settlers in Minnesota by enraged Indians that erupted on Aug. 17, 1862. During a fearsome six-week period settlers were relentlessly pursued and killed by roving bands of Eastern Sioux (Dakota) Indians driven to desperation by the government failing to honor treaties and deliver promised food, money and goods. read more...

The 400-year armed conflict between whites and Native Americans saw enough savagery and cruelty to shame both races, but even in this context it is hard to understand the butchery that marked the short-lived Dakota War that erupted in Minnesota on Aug. 17, 1862. During a fearsome six-week period white settlers in Minnesota were relentlessly pursued and killed by roving bands of Eastern Sioux (Dakota) Indians driven to rage by the government failing to honor treaties and deliver promised food, money and goods. read more...

The following editorial by a Texas newspaper presents a conservative view of the bloody, destructive riots then raging in Watts, the predominantly African-American area of Los Angeles, California, in August 1965. The editorial takes a strong stand—yet in its seemingly clear position and the arguments it musters to support its point of view, it reflects the underlying uncertainty and complexity that makes it difficult to understand something as terrifying and complicated as a race riot. read more...

For six bloody, destructive days in the summer of 1965, from Aug. 11-16, the predominantly African-American area of Watts (Los Angeles, California) was torn apart in a series of riots that left 34 people dead, over 1,000 injured and more than 3,400 arrested. It was an explosion of violence triggered by a white police officer’s arrest of a black man on suspicion of drunken driving, along with his brother and mother—but the underlying cause was the long-simmering tension caused by poverty, discrimination, and distrust of an almost all-white police force. read more...

When President Richard M. Nixon made his nationally-televised address to the nation on Aug. 8, 1974, announcing he was resigning the presidency, the news came as a relief to an American public weary and frustrated by the Watergate scandal. The sense of relief was felt far beyond the United States, as the following international newspaper editorials reveal. These two newspaper articles, each summarizing international opinion, were printed in American papers on Aug. read more...

When President Richard M. Nixon made his nationally-televised address to the nation on Aug. 8, 1974, announcing he was resigning the presidency, the news came as a relief to a public weary and frustrated by the Watergate scandal. For two years Nixon had denied any involvement in the scandal’s cover-up, but the Supreme Court ruled that the president had to release tapes of White House conversations he had secretly recorded. On Aug. read more...

In an exciting two-mile rowing race on the waters of New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee on Aug. 3, 1852, Harvard’s Oneida won the first Harvard-Yale Boat Race, beginning a regatta rivalry that continues to this day. That 1852 race was the first intercollegiate athletic competition between American colleges. It was witnessed by a large crowd including General Franklin Pierce, who was elected the United States’ 14th president later that year. Pierce presented Harvard with the prized trophy: a pair of black walnut oars inscribed with silver. read more...

After 200 years of shielding itself from the outside world, Japan was forced to end its policy of seclusion on July 29, 1858, when it somewhat reluctantly signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with the United States. This treaty, negotiated by U.S. Consul General Townsend Harris, was the culmination of the U.S. effort to force open Japan begun by the arrival of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and a naval fleet that arrived in Uraga Harbor (Tokyo) on July 8, 1853. read more...