WASHINGTON - The U.S. Census Bureau released data on Thursday showing that America’s foreign-born population has risen to an all-time high of 40 million.  The data also shows that people who have come to live in the U.S. tend to reside in larger households with more children and grandparents, compared to native households. 
The Census Bureau […]

WASHINGTON - Encyclopaedia Britannica, the world’s oldest English language encyclopedia, says it is switching its publishing focus exclusively to the Internet.
 
The Chicago-based company issued a statement Tuesday that it is ending its print edition of the famed reference guide, 244 years after it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Encyclopaedia Britannica became a growing fixture in […]

WASHINGTON - Americans are getting their first national museum devoted exclusively to African American life, art, history and culture.  When complete it will be the Smithsonian Institution’s 19th museum.
After decades of planning, the Museum of African American History and Culture is being built on the National Mall in Washington.
President Obama, former first lady Laura Bush […]

WASHINGTON - In the early 20th Century, more than two million African-Americans left their homes and small farms in the South and moved to northern industrial cities to escape overt racism and search for better work and happier lives.
One-half of the large African-American population left Beaufort County, South Carolina, for example, and headed north.
The massive […]

MANASSAS - This month marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the U.S. Civil War - a conflict that nearly tore the United States apart. Eleven southern states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, vowing to maintain their economic system based on agriculture and slavery. 
On April 12, 1861, Confederate […]

WASHINGTON - New census figures for the Midwest U.S. state of Michigan show dramatic population declines. Michigan was the only state in the 2010 census to lose people. Its biggest city, Detroit, once the fourth largest in the nation, is now the 18th largest.
That’s due in part to an exodus created by massive job losses […]

NEW YORK - Thursday, March 17, is Saint Patrick’s Day, a time when native-born Irish and Irish-Americans will parade and pipe their way up Manhattan’s famed Fifth Avenue. The 2011 event, which is expected to include well over 150,000 thousand marchers, will be the 250th annual Saint Patrick’s Day Parade to be held in New […]

WASHINGTON - This week the U.S. Census Bureau released the official count of the U.S. population.  Earlier, a huge trove of census data was made available in the form of the American Community Survey, which shows immigrants are assimilating quickly.  But experts say the country’s future growth may depend on its Hispanic minority.  
The Census bureau […]

MOUNT VERNON - George Washington was born into a world where slavery was an accepted part of life. When his father died in 1743, Washington - at the age of 11 - inherited 10 slaves.
When the nation’s first president died in 1799, more than 300 slaves lived in quarters on his Mount Vernon estate. This […]

OAKLAND - Thanks to Hollywood, the word “cowboy” conjures up images of tough, independent men: solitary, weather-beaten and…white. But many of the Old West cowboys were African-American.
Each October, the Black Cowboy Parade in Oakland, California celebrates the role African-Americans played in settling the West after the Civil War of the 1860s.
Cowboy parade
This year’s Black Cowboy […]

NASHVILLE - American explorer Meriwether Lewis is best known for his efforts in the early 1800s to chart the Louisiana Purchase territory.  His expedition with William Clark paved the way for the westward expansion of the United States. After the journey, President Thomas Jefferson appointed Lewis as Governor of the Louisiana Territory. While on a […]

EDINBURGH - It was called “The Gathering” and gather they did. More than 50,000 Scots and would-be Scots from across the globe gathered this past weekend in Scotland for the largest ever reunion of the countries clansmen and their descendants.
Tartans of every color and size. Scotsmen and women of every description and nationality as well.
The […]

WASHINGTON - On June 18th, the United States Senate issued a proclamation formally apologizing for slavery that ended almost 150 years ago in the American South. 
The Senate’s only black member, Roland Burris of Illinois, said the measure was significant and long overdue but in no way would eliminate future actions that may deal with reparations.
But […]

WASHINGTON - The National Archives announces the year-long celebration of its 75th anniversary. Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 19, 1934, the legislation established a National Archives to preserve the permanently valuable papers of the federal government. Today the institution has become a cornerstone of our democracy, making billions of documents […]

WASHINGTON - Scientists have developed a model to predict the movement of millions of people from one country to another.  Experts say such projections are important because they affect social services - such as schools, jobs and health care - in countries that receive large numbers of immigrants. 
Scientists have developed a model they say will […]

MOSCOW - DNA tests have positively identified the remains of two children of the last Russian czar, settling a mystery that had long surrounded their fate. The memory of the murdered czarist family is still honored by many in Russia.  
The Russian General Prosecutor’s office says remains found last year in the city of Yekaterinburg have […]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Census Bureau says the Hispanic population has grown to more than 45 million people, and now represents 15 percent of the total population in the United States.Census Bureau statistics released Thursday show the Hispanic population grew by more than three percent (1.4 million) in the year ending July 1, 2007.
Officials say […]

LOS ANGELES - A Hollywood television director is helping elderly Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.
Zane Busby got her start in Hollywood as an actress, appearing in films and television series. Then she became a director of television comedies.
But curiosity attracted her to another part of the world. In 2001, she decided to visit the towns […]

WASHINGTON - The National Archives will host its fourth annual Genealogy Fair. This year’s program will highlight Federal records located at the National Archives relating to general genealogy, World War I, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Sessions will offer guidance on topics including Civil War pension files, Freedmen’s Bureau marriage records, World War I […]

ST. JOSEPH, MISSOURI - April 3 is an important date in the Midwestern city of St. Joseph, Missouri because two historic events happened there on that day, 22 years apart. One involved a short-lived, but thrilling chapter in mail delivery and the other was the cold-blooded murder of a local resident who turned out to […]

WASHINGTON - The Library of Congress has been preparing for the digital age since the 1960’s, when it used early technology to create and share its bibliographic information in electronic form.  In the 1990’s, the library started distributing digitized versions of its treasures to schools and libraries across the United States.  Now, there are millions […]

WASHINGTON - On a number of islands off the coasts of the southern states of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, live the Gullahs, a group many believe is the most authentic African-American community in the U.S.
The Gullahs, also referred to as the Geechee in some parts of the south, are descendants of African slaves and […]

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum says it is ready to begin using an international archive to help families find relatives who went missing in Europe during World War II.The museum recently acquired digital copies of records linked to more than 17 million people who were arrested, deported, forced into slave labor, killed, or […]

WASHINGTON - In New York Harbor lies Ellis Island, which was once an immigration center so prominent that it was known as the Gateway to America. At the height of its activity between 1901 and 1924, inspectors on Ellis Island processed 12 million newcomers to the United States. One in four Americans today can identify […]