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9 votes
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A brief history of Nixon's 'Saturday Night Massacre'
12 votes -
American Nazis in the 1930s—The German American Bund
10 votes -
William J. Murtagh, ‘pied piper’ of American historic preservation, dies at 95
3 votes -
Anti-semitisim comes to a city of tolerance
13 votes -
Pittsburgh synagogue shooting leaves at least four dead, official says
34 votes -
Why are Americans still uncomfortable with atheism?
18 votes -
In need of cadavers, 19th-century medical students raided Baltimore’s graves
7 votes -
'Toxic Christianity': The US evangelicals creating champions for Donald Trump
25 votes -
The pyramid scheme that collapsed a nation
6 votes -
The suffocation of American democracy
8 votes -
How mail-order catalogues subverted the racial hierarchy of Jim Crow
8 votes -
A map of every building in the United States
23 votes -
Maps have the power to shape history: A groundbreaking female cartographer charted the evolution of the United States—and the dispossession of Native Americans
6 votes -
The history of the electric chair that might soon kill an inmate in Tennessee
6 votes -
As Harvard’s admissions policy goes on trial, alleged victims of racial bias remain anonymous
3 votes -
How salt helped win the American Civil War
10 votes -
Underwater archaeologists may have discovered the oldest known shipwreck in Lake Erie
6 votes -
Catholic Church has lost more members than any other religion in the US
15 votes -
Tulsa, Oklahoma mayor reopens investigation into possible mass graves from 1921 race massacre
4 votes -
Thirty-five years ago today, one man saved us from world-ending nuclear war
16 votes -
Philadelphia threw a WWI parade that gave thousands of onlookers the flu
9 votes -
How Midwestern suffragists won the vote by attacking immigrants
7 votes -
Why is Canadian English unique?
19 votes -
“I now know what it’s like to have A 110-story building come down on my head.”
9 votes -
Don't talk to the police
28 votes -
What's next after Liberal Democracy
5 votes -
Dealing with an out-of-control president, in 1973
8 votes -
1600s Native American fort is one of the most important Northeast finds
4 votes -
The other political correctness: America's elite universities are censoring themselves on China
11 votes -
1000 years from now, assuming records still exist, what do you think historians will give as the end date for the American Empire?
The Ottoman Empire ended in 1922. The Roman Empire, 476, though it was survived by the Eastern Roman Empire which lasted until 1453 and the Holy Roman Empire which stuck around in some form until...
The Ottoman Empire ended in 1922. The Roman Empire, 476, though it was survived by the Eastern Roman Empire which lasted until 1453 and the Holy Roman Empire which stuck around in some form until 1806.
Obviously these dates are inexact, but it's a useful historical tool to pick two events and use them as bookends to describe the arc of a given empire or society.
So with the benefit of sufficient hindsight, say 500 or 1000 years from now, what do you think will be the generally accepted date printed in history books for "here's the event that signals the end of this period of history"?
Do you believe it will be some point in the past, or the future? If you think it's in the past, how far back? What event?
If you think it's in the future, how far in the future? What do you predict will happen at that time to be the historical marker?
p.s. don't say "all history will be forgotten because of nuclear war". I agree that's a distinct possibility, but the likelihood of it happening is best addressed as a separate topic from this one. for the purposes of this thread assume we haven't completely fucked ourselves as a species and at least some records of our current time period exist.
25 votes -
Hunter S. Thompson in Chicago, 1968: The battle for the Democratic Party’s soul
12 votes -
Victoria Woodhull: The first American woman to run for President — 150 years ago
10 votes -
A growing share of Americans say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral
37 votes -
How did Americans lose their British accents
24 votes -
After a year of rising tensions, protesters tear down Confederate statue on UNC campus
27 votes -
The city born in a day: The origin story of Oklahoma City
5 votes -
The Iroquois confederacy
3 votes -
The spy who licked me: Inside the CIA’s cat espionage fail
7 votes -
Why America’s ‘nones’ don’t identify with a religion
6 votes -
Here's why Rhode Island is the only state that celebrates Victory Day
4 votes -
The first Japanese man in America: A teenager shipwrecked on a Pacific atoll helped transform relations between Japan and the United States
5 votes -
What is the future of English in the US?
8 votes -
3D printable guns as free speech?
14 votes -
A sociologist examines the “white fragility” that prevents white Americans from confronting racism
23 votes -
The biggest lie we still teach in American history classes: "the idea that we’re always getting better keeps us from seeing those times when we’re getting worse"
18 votes -
How in 2015, $364 Billion flowed through two and four year public universities and colleges of the states of the USA
4 votes -
Basil Banghart, an incredibly interesting American criminal, burglar and prison escape artist
4 votes -
The free speech panic: How the right concocted a crisis
8 votes -
Letter from a Birmingham museum
2 votes