USA

The first Pony Express riders set off on April 3rd, 1860.

Mark Rathbone puts the famous 1954 school segregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, into historical context.

One of the founder members of the Confederacy seceded from the United States on 20 December 1860.

‘Complex marriage’, ‘male continence’ and the selection of the perfect partner were all themes propounded by a 19th-century cult in New York State. Clive Foss explores the influence of Plato’s Republic on John Humphrey Noyes and his Perfectionist movement.

The gulf between the religious ideals of US conservatives and those of the European Enlightenment is as wide as the Atlantic. Tim Stanley looks at the origins and the enduring legacy of the American revivalist tradition.

The deeply historical nature of Dylan’s output has, until now, received little attention.

America has struggled to reform public healthcare for over 100 years and now has a byzantine, costly system controlled by powerful, money-hungry interest groups. Can President Obama deliver reform?

The English journalist Walter Bagehot was one of the few commentators to grapple with the constitutional issues behind the the American Civil War. Frank Prochaska discusses his ideas.

Richard Cavendish remembers the first performance of Porgy and Bess on September 30th, 1935.

Shortly before his death, Hyman Frankel, the last surviving member of the team whose work led to the development of the atom bomb, talked to Maureen Paton about why he decided not to join the Manhattan Project.