Curated playlist
Post–civil rights era in African-American history
- 2008 United States presidential electionShortly before midnight Eastern Time on the 4th of November 2008, Barack Obama stepped onto a stage in Grant Park, Chicago, and faced a crowd of 250,000 people. The 2008 United States presidential election had just been decided in his…
- Trial of Michael JacksonPeople v. Jackson, filed under the number 1133603, put the pop singer Michael Jackson in front of a jury at Santa Barbara County Superior Court in Santa Maria, California, in 2005. The charge was that he had molested Gavin Arvizo, who was…
- Murder trial of O. J. SimpsonAround 95 million Americans watched the prelude to the murder trial of O. J. Simpson live, on the 17th of June 1994. Television stations had interrupted game 5 of the NBA Finals to show a slow police pursuit of a white Ford Bronco. Inside…
- Opposition to United States involvement in the Vietnam WarIn 1964, fewer than eighty people marched against the Vietnam War. By 1969, about 15 million took part in one day.
- Charleston church shootingThe Charleston church shooting began with an ordinary Wednesday-night Bible study on the 17th of June 2015. Thirteen people gathered at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Twelve of them were…
- JonestownJonestown, formally the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, was a remote jungle settlement in Guyana, and its name now stands for a single day in November 1978. On the 18th of November, 918 people died in three places: the settlement…
- JuneteenthJuneteenth marks the day enslaved Texans learned they were free, 900 days after the Emancipation Proclamation.
- Atlanta murders of 1979–1981The Atlanta murders of 1979 to 1981, often called the Atlanta child murders, took at least 28 lives between July 1979 and May 1981. The victims were African-American children, adolescents and adults, and the killings unfolded across a…
- Chris Rock–Will Smith slapping incidentThe slapping incident between Chris Rock and Will Smith unfolded live at the 94th Academy Awards, and one witness waiting offstage captured the room's disbelief in a single sentence. Kevin Costner, who stood ready to present the award for…
- Hart family murdersThe Hart family murders, a murder-suicide in 2018, took the lives of two women and their six adopted children. Years before, one of those children became known across the country through a single photograph. In 2014, at a protest in…