NewsInHistory Blog

After the Civil War, the nation turned its energies to rebuilding itself and settling the West. Government policy toward the Native Americans still roaming the vast plains left the Indians with only two choices, neither very good. Either accept life on sterile reservations where corrupt Indian agents kept their wards in a state of constant near-starvation, or try to follow the traditional ways off the reservation—in which case the government would label you “hostile” and hunt you down. read more...

On Dec. 30, 1862, stormy seas off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, did what the Confederate ironclad Virginia (Merrimac) could not: sink the mighty Union ironclad Monitor. Another Union gunboat, the Rhode Island, was towing the Monitor in fine weather on calm seas, but about 9:00 the night of Dec. 30 the weather suddenly changed for the worse, and by 10:00 the rough seas were pounding the Monitor and it sprang a leak. read more...

Because of the well-established presence in the Oregon Country of the British Hudson’s Bay Company, the entire area from 1818 until 1840 was essentially British territory—despite a joint occupancy agreement between the U.S. and Great Britain. All that changed in the 1840s, when America became obsessed that its “Manifest Destiny” was to extend across the entire continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. read more...

NewsInHistory.com is continually adding more content to our historical newspaper archive—titles new to our collection as well as expanding the date ranges and number of issues for titles we have already digitized. We have been especially productive during December; this is the second addition of papers to our archive this month. This current addition involves 12 newspapers from 10 states; 1 of these titles is new to our archive. A total of 46,297 issues have been added in this release! Here are the details: read more...

[Editor’s note: Kathie Flood, NewsBank’s Senior Project Manager for Historical Newspapers, knows the content of our historical newspaper archive as well as anyone in the company. From time to time she will be making guest blog posts on our NewsInHistory site to showcase a particularly interesting newspaper edition from our collection.]

Short, silly cartoons – a splash of entertainment, a quick smile brought to a child’s face. read more...

NewsInHistory.com is continually adding more content to our historical newspaper archive -- titles new to our collection as well as expanding the date ranges for titles we have already digitized. This current addition involves 8 newspapers from 7 states; 2 of these titles are new to our archive. A total of 9,542 issues have been added in this release. Here are the details:

Connecticut

New London Gazette (New London). 158 issues: 1827 to 1837

Louisiana read more...

By 1850, the issue of slavery was dividing North and South and threatening to plunge the nation into civil war. The rupture almost exploded in 1846, 1847 and 1848, when the Wilmot Proviso was before Congress three times. This legislation would have banned slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico in the Mexican-American war; it passed the House but Southern senators managed to defeat it in the Senate votes. read more...

NewsInHistory.com is continually adding more content to our historical newspaper archive -- titles new to our collection as well as expanding the date ranges for titles we have already digitized. This current addition involves 9 newspapers from 7 states; all of this month’s additions are expansions of titles already in our archive. A total of 6,718 issues have been added in this release. Here are the details:

Arkansas

Jonesboro Evening Sun (Jonesboro). 2,089 issues: 1904 to 1922 read more...