With the golden sunlight glimmering on their bayonets and the soft Vermont breezes tickling their green silk battle flag, the self-proclaimed Irish Republican Army marched off to war on the morning of May 25, 1870. Stopping on a country road outside a brick farmhouse just yards from his intended target, General John O’Neill ordered his…

My monthly e-newsletter, The Throwback, is filled with history stories that will make you say “Wait? What?” Click here to read this month’s edition, in which I discuss the early dominance of African-American jockeys at the Kentucky Derby, Conan O’Brien’s obsession with biographer Robert Caro, and the time Donald Trump foreshadowed his border wall payment…