Cochabamba People’s Agreement: Annotated
In April 2010, representatives from 140 countries gathered in Bolivia to outline an explicitly anti-capitalist, decolonial agenda for the sake of the planet.
“Now We Can Begin”: Annotated
To mark the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, activist Crystal Eastman described the path to full freedom for American women.
“What to the Slave is The Fourth of July?”: Annotated
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a Fourth of July speech that became his most famous public oration.
Declaration of Conscience: Annotated
In June 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith criticized Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist campaigns. She was the first of his colleagues to challenge his Red Scare rhetoric.
Brown v. Board of Education: Annotated
The 1954 Supreme Court decision, based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, declared that “separate but equal” has no place in education.
The Paris Agreement: Annotated
Adopted by almost 200 parties at the 2015 UN Climate Change Conference, the Paris Agreement captures international ambitions for cooperative climate action.
Lyndon B. Johnson’s Decision Speech: Annotated
United States President Lyndon B. Johnson’s televised announcement that he would not run for re-election shocked a nation divided by the Vietnam War.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated
Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: Annotated
Signed February 2, 1848, the treaty compelled Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory, bringing more than 525,000 square miles under US sovereignty.
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe: Annotated
Poe's 1841 story, arguably the first detective fiction, contains many tropes now considered standard to the genre, including a brilliant, amateur detective.