From the Kansas State Historical Society website:

"Gun collectors covet this rare and beautiful 18th century Pennsylvania-made rifle. How did it end up in Kansas? We'd like to know the answer to that question, too!"

From the Bowery Boys website:

"During the construction of a downtown federal administration building, an extraordinary find was discovered—the remnants of a burial ground used by African slaves during the 18th Century.

In the earliest days of New Amsterdam, the first Africans were brought against their will to help build the new Dutch port, slaves for a city that would be built upon their backs. Later, forced to repress the cultural expressions of their forefathers, the early black population of British New York did preserve their heritage in the form of burial rites, in a small 'Negro Burial Ground' to the south of Collect Pond (and just a couple short blocks to today's City Hall).

How did this small plot of land—:and its astounding contents—become preserved in the middle of the most bustling area of the most bustling city in the world? And why is it considered one of the most spectacular archaelogical finds in New York City history?"

From the Bowery Boys website:

"Avast ye mateys, there were indeed pirates in New York! Not only did they operate throughout the New York region in the 19th century, most of their grave misdeeds were focused around the East River waterfront, and in particular, Corlear's Hook.

Once a sandy beach, Corlear's Hook, at the bend in the river in lower Manhattan, has a history that include mass slaughter, innovations of the shipping trade, the heart of New York prostitution and the birth of the tenement. And in the last half of the 19th century harbored pirate gangs with names like the Daybreak Boys, the Hook Gang and the Tub of Blood Bunch."

This animated presentation from The Map as History visualizes the growth of the U.S. as it acquired North American territory, from the Louisiana Purchase up to the Civil War.

From PBS:

As the wife of the fourth president, James Madison, Dolley Madison played an important part in the political and social experiment that was the early American Republic. Long before women held any overt political power, she used her unelected position to legitimize the nation's new capital, to create a political and social style for the new country, and to give Americans a sense of their own national identity.

Boston College professor Kevin Kenny discusses his book Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment with University of Iowa professor Marshall Poe. The book looks at the downfall of Quaker William Penn's ideal of peaceful coexistence between Native Americans and colonists.

From the National Constitution Center website:

"The National Constitution Center welcomes Visiting Scholar A.E. Dick Howard, White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Virginia School of Law, for a discussion about the founding periods in France and America, including how the U.S. constitutional experience influenced the debates on the first French Constitution and the divergence in French and American constitutionalism after those early years."

To listen to this lecture, scroll to the August 3rd, 2009, program.