Issue

A longtime contributor and former editor introduces the special anniversary issue.

As much as nine-tenths of the indigenous population of the Americas died in less than a generation from European pathogens.

Spain’s attack on Fort Caroline and brutal slaughter of its inhabitants in 1565 ended France’s colonial interests on the east coast.

Only by luck and happenstance did Britain’s first permanent settlement in the New World survive.

The British seize Manhattan from the Dutch in 1664 — and alter the trajectory of North American history.

A Great Lakes Indian rebellion against the British changed the balance forever between Indians and colonists.

Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion.

In the teeth of near defeat, General George Washington pulled out miraculous mid-winter victories.

A diminutive, persuasive Virginian hijacked the Constitutional Convention and forced the moderates to accept a national government with vastly expanded powers.

Critical decisions by the chief justice saved the Supreme Court’s independence — and made possible its wide-ranging role today.