Flag Days: Unfolding a Moment

Esperanto is what linguists call a “constructed language.” It isn’t attached to a nation or a region, and it didn’t evolve from another language over time. Instead, nearly 150 years ago, someone decided to sit down and design the whole thing from scratch. That someone was L. L. Z ... Show More

In 1932, the Women's House of Detention—New York City's first women's prison—opened in the heart of Greenwich Village. It was opened to make "wayward" women quiet, private, and properly feminine. And the building had one unique feature originally meant to be a sort of kindness—a ... Show More

This episode is sponsored by Acura.From the outside, the building is a light gray spiral, and from the inside, the art is displayed on one long ramp that curves up towards a glass skylight in the ceiling. We’re going to take the greatness of this building as a given. What we’re g ... Show More

<p>The United States Flag Join us today as we learn how the flag of the United States came to be.</p> <p>Sources:</p> <p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-the-United-States-of-America"><u><strong>https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-the-United-States-of-Americ ... Show More

<p>13 equal horizontal stripes in red and white, with a navy blue square in the top left bearing 50 small white five pointed stars. It's recognisable the world over as the flag of the United States of America.</p><br><p>But how did this become the American flag? When did it devel ... Show More

The Star-Spangled Banner is embedded in American national identity and yet it only became the official national anthem in 1931. Erica Wagner returns to its origins, the Battle of Baltimore in 1814, to find out how Francis Scott Key came to write these lyrics about the American fl ... Show More

<p>In today's Episode, Dana, Zaron and Jason tackle a 130-year-old mystery. Although American schoolchildren still recite The Pledge every morning in nearly every classroom, we still aren't sure who actually wrote it. And all these years later, the long-accepted story is showing ... Show More

<p>How do you actually make change in the world? For 126 years, Mississippi has had the Confederate battle flag on their state flag, and they were the last state in the nation where that emblem remained “officially” flying.  A few days ago, that flag came down. A few days before  ... Show More

On this episode of Our American Stories, Historian David McCullough brings generational talent to those studying the wild realities of America's independence. After all, no one has ever lived in the past, but in the present. At the National Archive, McCullough names and thanks hi ... Show More