US History
Chrysler 1979: Lessons from an early corporate “bailout”
Lessons from history
By Tom Eley, September 26, 2008
In 1979, Chrysler Corporation, the third largest US automaker, hovered on the verge of collapse, a victim of sharply declining revenue and cash-on-hand that had reached the level of threatening daily ...
Declassified grand jury transcripts confirm frame-up of Ethel Rosenberg
The trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
By Tom Eley, September 13, 2008
The recent release of previously secret grand jury transcripts has revealed that crucial testimony was perjured in the conviction and 1953 execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for conspiracy to com...
Citizen of the world: a brief survey of the life and times of Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
By Ann Talbot, September 30, 2004
The lecture below by World Socialist Web Site correspondent Ann Talbot was presented on September 24 to a meeting in Britain organised by the Rotherham Metropolitan District Local History Council, as ...
US Justice Department opens investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmett Till
By Helen Halyard, June 11, 2004
The federal Justice Department announced last month that it would reopen its long-suppressed investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago who was the victim of a...
On the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination
December 12, 2003
Dear Messrs. North and Vann:
The California recall in historical perspective: Lessons of Upton Sinclair’s 1934 campaign
By Shannon Jones, December 3, 2003
The recall of California Democratic Governor Gray Davis and the installation of film celebrity Arnold Schwarzenegger was a significant event in the political life of the United States. In particular, ...
Reflections on the 40th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination
By David North and Bill Vann, November 22, 2003
In November 1963, 37 years before George W. Bush was installed as president by means of a political conspiracy, the assassination of John F. Kennedy demonstrated how a man could be removed from the pr...
A landmark in the fight against capital punishment in the US
Lessons of the 1924 Leopold and Loeb murder case
By Shannon Jones, September 8, 2001
The United States remains one of the few advanced industrialized countries in the world that still practices capital punishment. Since the US Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 731 in...
Documentary on Scottsboro case distorts 1930s struggle against racism in US South
By Fred Mazelis, April 23, 2001
On March 25, 1931, nine black youth, ranging in age from 13 to 21, were arrested in Alabama on charges of raping two young white women. Thus began the notorious Scottsboro case, a racist frame-up that...
A presidential family in time of war
By Joseph Kay, March 7, 2001
Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided, Produced and directed by David Grubin, a presentation of the Public Broadcasting System series The American Experience
The Jefferson-Hemings controversy
In defense of history
By Helen Halyard and Shannon Jones, December 31, 1998
Substantial debate and controversy have accompanied the science journal Nature's release of genetic test results supporting the claim that Thomas Jefferson fathered children by one of his slaves, Sall...
Equality, the Rights of Man and the Birth of Socialism
By David North, October 24, 1996
The following is a lecture given by David North, national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on 24 October 1996.
