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Across America, Juneteenth Day is celebrated to mark the day when the last enslaved people in the United States learned they were free. For generations, Black Americans have recognized the end of one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history with joy, in the form of parades, street festivals, musical performances, or cookouts. The U.S. government was slow to embrace the occasion — it was only in 2021 that President Joe Biden signed a bill passed by Congress to set aside Juneteenth, or June 19th, as a federal holiday. And just as many people learn what Juneteenth is all...

President Joe Biden’s motorcade slipped out of the White House around 3:30 a.m. on February 19. No big, flashy Air Force One for the trip. The president vanished into the darkness on an Air Force C-32, a modified Boeing 757 normally used for domestic trips to smaller airports. The next time he turned up, 20 hours later, it was in downtown Kyiv, Ukraine. Biden’s surprise visit to Ukraine on February 20 was the first time in modern history that a U.S. leader visited a warzone outside the aegis of the U.S. military — a feat the White House said...

One would have to go back hundreds of years to find a monarch who reigned longer than Queen Elizabeth II. In her 70 years on the throne, she helped modernize the monarchy across decades of enormous social change, royal marriages and births, and family scandals. For most Britons, she was the only monarch they had ever known. Her death in September was arguably the most high-profile death this year, prompting a collective outpouring of grief and respect for her steady leadership as well as some criticism of the monarchy’s role in colonialism. She likely met more people than anyone...

USS Arizona sailor Lou Conter lived through the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor even though his battleship exploded and sank after being pierced by aerial bombs. That makes the now 101-year-old somewhat of a celebrity, especially on the anniversary of the December 7, 1941 assault. Many call him and others in the nation’s dwindling pool of Pearl Harbor survivors heroes. Conter rejects the characterization. “The 2,403 men that died are the heroes. And we’ve got to honor them ahead of everybody else. And I’ve said that every time, and I think it should be stressed,” Conter said in a...