Vietnam war

The Soviets bring down a CIA U-2 spy plane on May 1, 1960, intensifying the Cold War. Captured in Russia, pilot Francis Gary Powers is interrogated for more than a hundred days and imprisoned for nearly two years.

Forty years ago today, the last American combat troops left Vietnam. The events of that day aren't imprinted on the national consciousness, as are images of overloaded helicopters taking off from Saigon. That evacuation of American personnel and Vietnamese refugees happened two years later, in…

Have older Americans turned peacenik?

Sen. George S. McGovern is remembered mostly as an opponent of the Vietnam War and as the ill-fated Democratic presidential nominee in 1972. After a campaign marred by mishaps - from an out-of-control national party convention schedule to revelations that his vice presidential pick, Thomas…

In the United States, freedom of speech - even the most outrageously shocking speech - is a cherished right, though most of us probably aren't quick to think of poetry as a form of speech that needs protecting. It's been a long, long time since anyone tried to put an American in jail for publishing…