On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony for the 200-meter race at the Mexico City Olympics, American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos bowed their heads and raised gloved fists in a silent salute for human rights. The gesture stunned the world.

Most Americans still don’t like what they see in the economy: only 26% call conditions excellent or good, while 74% say they’re fair or poor. That topline hasn’t budged much in three years—but the parties have flipped positions. 44% of Republicans now rate the economy positively (their highest since Trump’s first term), compared with just 10% of Democrats.

On October 8, 1941, Jesse Louis Jackson Sr. was born in Greenville, South Carolina. A close ally of Dr. King, Jackson led Operation Breadbasket to leverage Black consumer power for fair hiring and pay, later founding the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to advance voting rights, economic justice, and human dignity.

“Antifa” is short for “anti-fascist.” Its roots trace back to Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, when militant leftists organized to resist the rise of fascist regimes in Italy and Germany. The name resurfaced in the 1980s with punk and skinhead groups in Germany, who fought neo-Nazi violence in their streets.

Social media gives a voice to the voiceless.
Social media also makes us feel like we’re changing the world… when maybe we aren’t.

TikTok isn’t just for dance challenges anymore — it’s becoming America’s newsroom. A new Pew study finds one in five U.S. adults now regularly get news on TikTok, up from just 3% in 2020. In fact, no other social media platform Pew has studied has experienced faster growth in news consumption during that time. Among adults under 30, that share has soared to 43%. Even a quarter of 30-to-49-year-olds now use TikTok as a news source. More than half of TikTok’s users overall say they consume news there — rivaling Facebook, X, and Truth Social.

On October 2, 1869, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi — known to the world as Mahatma Gandhi — was born in India. His life became a testament to the extraordinary power of nonviolent resistance.

Americans are losing faith in the nation’s highest court. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that half of U.S. adults now view the Supreme Court unfavorably — nearly a three-decade low — while 48% hold a favorable opinion. That’s a sharp drop from 2020, when 70% of Americans said they viewed the Court positively.

On this day, September 18, we celebrate the birthday of Anna Deavere Smith — actor, playwright, professor, and a groundbreaking force in American theater.

Love it or hate it, the Internal Revenue Service has been around nearly as long as the United States itself. Its roots stretch back to the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Revenue Act of 1862, creating the office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue and imposing the nation’s first federal income tax. The tax was meant to fund the Union’s war effort — and it worked, bringing in millions of badly needed dollars.

Pew Research Center reports that union membership has fallen dramatically over the past four decades — from 20% of American workers in 1983 to fewer than 10% in 2024. Most Americans say that decline has hurt not just workers but the country itself.

On September 11, 1789, Alexander Hamilton was appointed by George Washington as the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury.

Vast deserts, mountain ranges, open plains — nearly one in every ten acres of the U.S. is overseen not by states, but by a little-known federal agency: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Forget nukes, pandemics, or even terrorism — most Americans today believe the biggest danger comes from something far closer to home: lies spreading online.

Sixty-two years ago today, a quarter of a million people filled the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in one of the largest demonstrations for justice in American history: the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Ten years after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, young Americans — LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ alike — still dream of saying “I do.”

Thirty-four years ago today, on August 21, 1991, the people of Latvia reclaimed their freedom. After decades of Soviet control, the Latvian parliament declared independence from the USSR — even as tanks rolled through the streets of Riga.

A staggering 80% of U.S. adults say Republican and Democratic voters not only disagree on policies—but also can’t agree on basic facts, according to Pew Research Center’s latest survey. This overwhelming bipartisan consensus reflects a deepening crisis in American civic life: even our understanding of truth has become partisan.

On the morning of August 7, 1974, the impossible happened in lower Manhattan. At 7:00 a.m., Philippe Petit stepped off the edge of the South Tower of the World Trade Center — and onto a wire.

In classrooms across the country, public school teachers are grading papers by day — and stocking shelves, serving tables, or freelancing by night. According to new Pew Research analysis, about 1 in 6 full-time public school teachers held a second job during the 2020–21 school year. And it wasn’t just summer work. Roughly 17% of teachers worked a non-school job during the school year, a rate nearly four times higher than the national average for all U.S. workers.