History

The writer of Walden has been flattened into a caricature, but Henry David Thoreau was much more than a "prophetic hermit," the directors of the documentary say. 

Kate Warne became the nation’s first female detective when she began working for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in Chicago, and she later played a key role in foiling an apparent assassination plot against president-elect Abraham Lincoln. 

The Dearborn Park neighborhood rose from another expanse of abandoned railroad property amid high hopes – and deep unease – about whom downtown redevelopment was really for.

Bombshell shows how the government tried to minimize the effects of radiation and prevent independent reporting through censorship and co-opting of the press.

The final documentary of American Experience before the series pauses new production explores the life and career of the controversial Nobel Prize-winning diplomat Henry Kissinger.

"The history and lives of Muslims in America have been as expansive as America is," says an executive producer of American Muslims.

Do you have a burning question for Ken Burns? Let us know, and we’ll ask him when he’s in town next month ahead of the premiere of The American Revolution! 

Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote his first adventure and science fiction stories while living in Chicago and Oak Park, creating the popular character of Tarzan. 

In what would one day become Illinois, a smaller theater of war called the Illinois Campaign would push the fight for independence deep into the interior of the young country.

In a Chicago History Museum image, astronauts John Swigert, left, and James Lovell, wave to a crowd that gathered downtown for a parade following the Apollo 13 mission. Lovell, who lived in Lake Forest, died on August 7 at age 97.

On May 30, 1937, a peaceful labor protest on Chicago's East Side turned violent when police opened fire on the unarmed protestors, their families, and other supporters.

Prior to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, a group in Chicago filed a complaint against the CTA that resulted in improved transit access for people with disabilities. 

A former Canaryville Irish saloon on South Halsted Street is jam-packed with connections that reflect several significant moments in Chicago’s history.

Great Migrations: A People on the Move, a new four-part series hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., tells the story of African American movement over the 20th and 21st centuries. We spoke with the series producer/directors.