U.S. History

The Real Housewife of Tombstone

Lincoln Review: Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis Make the 16th President Relatable

2012 Election Results: Historic Night for Gay Issues and Candidates Across the United States

Four years ago, Senator Barack Obama won the presidency, but gay folks across the country were outraged that California voters approved Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage ban. Last night, it was a completely different story -- and one of the most historic and significant nights for the LGBT comm ... More >>

Tony Kushner Explains How He Adapted Lincoln for the Age of Obama

Tony Kushner isn't shy about politics. He's opinionated, and he stirs up controversy. In his own words, he's a "man of the left." His 1992 Tony Award-winning play Angels in America tackled AIDS at the height of its epidemic. In 2005, he co-wrote Steven Spielberg's Munich, which took heat for its po ... More >>

Civil War Photography Exhibit at California African American Museum Is a Tribute to Black Soldiers

Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman and Abraham Lincoln are a few of the major figures people think of when it comes to the Civil War. But you won't find any of these people featured in the California African American Museum's new exhibit. Instead, "African American Military Portraits from the Ameri ... More >>

Fort MacArthur Reenactment Combines Vikings, Nazis, Confederates and Other Armies Through Time

"Bloody hell, men!" Boom. Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Boom. Three men in tan uniforms lie inert on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Their remaining comrades radio for help and cower behind their jeep, trying desperately to shoot the Germans hiding in the bushes. The canon sounds again, causin ... More >>

Love the Beans, Hate the Beaner: Even White Supremacists Can't Resist a Good Burrito

Ronald Reagan's Conservative Blood for Sale

A vial of freedom-loving blood said to have belonged to late President Ronald Reagan was put up for auction this week, and the Simi Valley-based Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation (host of his library) was none too happy. While the anti-communist blood was said to have been legally obtained by a ... More >>

Cinco De Mayo Celebrates Anti-Slavery?

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about how Cinco de Mayo isn't a big Mexican holiday, not like the 4th of July is in the United States. It's true. A just-released book from UCLA professor David Hayes-Bautista, El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition, argues that Cinco's prominence in Am ... More >>

Cinco de Mayo Myths Debunked, in UCLA Professor's New Book

When Dr. David E. Hayes-Bautista says the phrase "Drinko de Mayo," he is far from bitter. He doesn't rant about how Cinco de Mayo has been subjected to brutal commercialization and stripped of its authenticity. It is, after all, difficult to really critique the Mexican beer companies for divesting t ... More >>

SeaWorld Whales Are Slaves Protected by U.S. Constitution? Federal Judge in SoCal Actually Considers It

SeaWorld Facebook​Updated at the bottom: Case dismissed. First posted at 11:51 a.m. on Monday. You might have blown off PETA's claim that whales under the care of SeaWorld San Diego were deserving of constitutional protection barring slavery (we sure did), but a federal judge in the case toda ... More >>

Go West, Young Shutterbug

SeaWorld Whales Are Slaves Held in Violation of 13th Amendment, PETA Says in SoCal Lawsuit

PETA's a FAIL on this one if you ask us.​Updated at the bottom with reaction from SeaWorld and L.A. author Earl Ofari Hutchinson. First posted at 11:27 a.m. Animal rights -- perfectly normal, perfectly healthy. Yet where does the movement go too far, surpassing even the best wishes of a life- ... More >>

Henry Rollins: The Column! Henry Speaks On His Consciousness-Expanding Trip to the Library of Congress With Ian MacKaye

[Look for your weekly fix from the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] See also: Henry Rollins: The Column! Copping MP3s For 
Free Is Not Cool I have just wrapped o ... More >>

Gospel According to First Squad

The Confounding Brothers

The Real Meaning of Tricky Dick

Hey There, Cowboy

The First Los Angeles Spaghetti Western Festival

A three-course feast in North Hollywood

How Los Angeles Covered Up the Massacre of 17 Chinese

Ronald Reagan's 100th Birthday Cake: $10,000 and 400 Pounds Worth of Chocolate Eagles and Licorice Jelly Beans (for a Dead Guy)

Jennifer Bjorklund via NBC Los Angeles​Ronald Reagan, actor turned California governor turned U.S. president, sure had a way of getting the American people, or at least the crazy rich kind, to love him. The charismatic ex-POTUS may not have his own national holiday yet, but national holidays p ... More >>

The Wave's Betty Pleasant Says Villaraigosa Administration 'Rife With Anti-Black Racism'

L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa​The Los Angeles Wave's Betty Pleasant, a longtime columnist who knows how to shake things up, dropped one of her signature bombs last night, charging that Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's administration is "rife with anti-Black racism." Pleasant wrote ... More >>

Q & A With Chris Kimball of Cook's Illustrated: Jello, Calf Brain Appetizers His New Book

J. GarbeeKimball, Unseasonably Sans Bow Tie At Fig At The Fairmont, Santa Monica​When you have lunch with Chris Kimball, otherwise known as the Executive Chef of America's Test Kitchen, you expect a little analysis. No, a lot of analysis. After all, the man has managed to transform the rather ... More >>

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CHERRY TREE?

WHAT'S NEXT, THE IRAQI HORROR SHOW?

BBQ, Brews and Red, White and Blues at the Queen Mary

HEY PULITZER COMMITTEE — BITE ME!

Armed Robbery at Pink's Hot Dogs: How Much Do You Think Was In That Tip Jar?

Flickr user Kristin Tsafos ​ Breaking News: Despite gastrointestinal evidence indicating otherwise, the chili dog is not invincible. According a Los Angeles Times report, Pink's Hot Dogs was robbed at 3:35 yesterday morning. Thankfully no injuries were reported, presumably no customers were a ... More >>

HONESTLY, GABE, YOU LOOK DASHING IN THAT HAT

FREEDOM'S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION ACADEMY VOTERS

BEST STEVE

Eat What Thomas Jefferson Just Ate: Huntington Library Lecture and Cooking Class

Thomas Jefferson, after Charles Willson Peale. Source: The Huntington Library​Thomas Jefferson is well known for his penchant for wine (he planted one of the first American vineyards at Monticello). But did you know he was also a reverent consumer of beer, English muffins, and ice cream? Museu ... More >>

The Crucible

Battle Hymn

43 Plays for 43 Presidents

General Petraeus: Designated Manure Spreader

Pie charts, benchmarks, "phased" redeployment; 30,000 wounded, 5,000 dead

John Adams: America's Middleman

HBO's patriot gamesmanship

1776

At the River I Stand

Helen of Inglewood

Revisiting Lundeberg’s History of Transportation

Music and Readings From Jefferson's Library

¡Ask a Mexican!

Special Tres-Question Edition

Art Pick: Abo Ovo, Tue., Feb. 7

Government and Floods

A quarter-century of libertarianism is washed away in New Orleans

The End of America, One More Time

Paradise lost in John Guare’s Lydie Breeze

Of Patriots and Scandals

What would George Washington do?

Revisionism Revisited

The Civil War and Ours

The View From the Black Tower

Lew Wasserman, 1913–2002

Baptized in Fire

On the exigencies and excuses of black history

Mr. Booth Goes to Washington

An actor prepares for hell