history

“Letter to Jimmy,” Alain Mabanckou’s much-lauded book, is a fitting tribute to the pivotal American essayist, activist and playwright, author of the novel, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and a collection of essays, “Notes of a Native Son,” among other major works.

UCLA will honor alumni who joined a mass protest in 1961 and became Freedom Riders to protest segregation encountered by African Americans when they traveled between states on buses, trains and used public facilities.

In a forthcoming book, UCLA classics professor Kathryn Morgan shows how a tyrant who ruled an influential ancient Greek colony in the early part of the fifth century B.C. tried to bolster his position by trumpeting the successes of his horses in chariot races.

A lost recording of a 50-year-old speech delivered at UCLA by the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. has been unearthed in a storage room and put online.

UCLA’s Laure Murat writes that for at least several centuries people have ascribed acts of terror to madness, often to advance political agendas.

Eric Avila says it’s fitting that recent protests against police killing unarmed African American men disrupted traffic on freeways, which have a legacy of devastation to urban African American communities.

Robin D.G. Kelley, distinguished professor of history at UCLA, served as a consultant on the new documentary "Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People."

With an office full of antique projectors known as “magic lanterns” and a conviction to retell media history, Erkki Huhtamo has pioneered the field of media archaeology.

That most people have never heard of Hatshepsut — a pharaoh of ancient Egypt, who was the greatest female ruler of the ancient world — is emblematic of the challenges women have always faced in politics, writes UCLA Egyptologist Kara Cooney.

UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library urges you to consult a 1665 treatise on the seven signs that witchcraft or necromancy is behind your ailments.

UCLA linguist Pamela Munro writes about the nearly forgotten language of the Gabrielino-Tongva Indians and her efforts to revive it for descendants of Southern California’s Tongva people.

After 10 years of research at UCLA, the first mobile website to function as a storytelling trail guide to help people explore the past, present and future of certain downtown L.A. neighborhoods —  as they walk, bike or skateboard in those locations — was unveiled.

In the 18th century, two teams of scientists set out to answer whether the earth was shaped more like a tomato or a Japanese eggplant?

In a new mainstream biography, Kara Cooney sets out to rehabilitate the image of the pharaoh Hatshepsut, a woman whose successes were later erased or reassigned to male forebears.

A new book by a UCLA professor shows how ailments presented in 19th century French mental hospitals held up a kind of fun-house mirror to the often horrific political dramas of the country's post-revolutionary era.

UCLA’s communication studies department has posted full speeches given on campus between 1962 and 1973, featuring major figures of the era such as Cesar Chavez, Lenny Bruce, Jane Fonda and Eldridge Cleaver.

Hidden away in the history department student lounge on the sixth floor of Bunche Hall is one of UCLA’s greatest treasures, but not many people knew it until an emeritus history professor pointed out its significance and landmark status.

UCLA linguist Pamela Munro started a Facebook page to revive and promote the Tongva language, once spoken by Southern California's Gabrielino-Tongva Indians. Through social media, their descendants are now learning words, phrases and songs in Tongva.

In a new book, a UCLA historian explores the vast network of social clubs that helped Japanese-American girls navigate the prejudice and exclusion that they faced in Los Angeles between 1920 and 1950.

 'Blood Royals' by UCLA's Eric Jager tells the story of a gory murder and its incredible investigation in 15th century Paris.

Eric Jager's newest nonfiction thriller, "Blood Royal," looks at the brutal murder of King Charles VI's brother, the Duke of Orleans, in Paris in the midst of the Hundred Years' War.

UCLA has the second-largest moving image archive in the United States after the Library of Congress, and the world’s largest university-based media archive.

Union Army General Winfield Scott Hancock, who played a key role in stopping Confederate attacks during the pivotal Civil War battle, had an important role in Los Angeles at the beginning of the war, according to UCLA grad student.

In this Q&A, UCLA law professor Stuart Banner talks about his new book documenting the litigious history of America’s national pastime.

A look at how the October 31 holiday evolved from a colorful but relatively minor-league American celebration to an iconic autumnal festival.