Is Joe Biden a Jimmy Carter?

Plus: A new documentary on Princess Diana |

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By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer Over the last year, conservative-leaning politicians and news outlets have been comparing President Biden to President Carter as a way to dismiss Biden as an ineffective President. Supporters of Biden and Carter say that comparison is not apt, especially now that Biden has signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act, which will lead to the biggest climate investment in U.S. history and lower prescription drug costs for seniors. We talked to historians of the 1970s and former advisors in the Carter White House about whether they see throughlines between the Biden and Carter administrations. They also outlined the challenges that each leader faced—high inflation and gas prices, to name a couple. As Stuart Eizenstat, Carter’s Chief White House Domestic Policy Advisor, quipped, “I had to wait 30 minutes in line [for gas] to get to the White House to deal with the problem of the gas lines.” All experts agreed on one thing: Carter accomplished more than he gets credit for. Click here to read the full article. A note for readers: This newsletter will be on hiatus for a week. The next edition will come out Sep. 1. Here’s more history to know:

HISTORY ON TIME.COM The FBI Is Investigating Whether President Trump Broke the Espionage Act. Here’s What to Know About the Law By Olivia B. Waxman Documents reveal that the FBI is investigating whether former President Trump violated the Espionage Act of 1917. Here's what to know Read More » U.S. Jesuits Promised to Raise $100 Million for Slavery Reparations Project. Descendants Say It’s Not Happening Fast Enough By Deepa Bharath/AP The descendants are the progeny of 272 enslaved men, women and children sold in 1838 by the Jesuit owners of Georgetown University. Read More » A New Documentary Sheds Light on a Pivotal Movement in Asian American History By Cady Lang Social justice activism in the Asian American community today owes much of its legacy to the pivotal but relatively unknown story of Chol Soo Lee,… Read More » How Amazon’s A League of Their Own Differs From the Movie—But Stays True to History By Shannon Carlin The new series, like its predecessor, follows the Rockford Peaches over the course of the 1943 season. Yet the show does so with a more inclusive purview and cast. Read More » The 5 Biggest Takeaways From HBO’s New Diana Documentary, The Princess By Cady Lang The Princess, a new documentary from HBO about Princess Diana, sheds new light on her life using archival footage Read More »

FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1945: The atom bomb “The atomic bomb was not merely a new weapon; it was a new dimension of military and political power. Each in its turn, steel and gunpowder and aircraft had gradually changed war and society. In a single day the atomic bomb made a bigger change than any of them. Its blast hit every war office and chancellery on earth.” (Aug. 20, 1945) Read More » This week in 1956: Duke Ellington “At 57, Edward Kennedy Ellington, jazzman, composer, and beyond question one of America's topflight musicians, is a magic name to two generations of Americans. His Mood Indigo, Sophisticated Lady, Solitude, and countless other dreamy tunes have become as familiar as any other songs since Stephen Foster. As jazz composer he is beyond categorizing—there is hardly a musician in the field who has not been influenced by the Ellington style. His style contains the succinctness of concert music and the excitement of jazz.” (Aug. 20, 1956) Read More » This week in 1998: John Glenn “In less than three months—36 years after [Glenn] blasted into the sky inside the titanium pod of a Mercury spacecraft—he'll return aboard the relatively lavish space shuttle…Long ago, the agency noticed a parallel between the changes that happen to a body in space and those wrought by aging on Earth. What better way to study this phenomenon than to send an aged astronaut into orbit? And what better aged astronaut than the one who made the country's first trip?” (Aug. 17, 1998) Read More »

HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB World War II: In this Twitter thread, historian Alex Wellerstein sets the record straight on misconceptions about President Truman’s involvement in the U.S. decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Museums: For the New York Times, Remy Tumin reports on a Philadelphia museum’s plans to give a proper burial to the remains of enslaved Black persons in its collection. Education: In Oklahoma, a state with laws designed to restrict the teaching of the history of racism, Garrett Yalch of The Frontier obtained a letter showing that a Department of Education attorney has recommended that Tulsa public schools be punished for teacher training that included “outlawed concepts.” Banned books: The Houston Chronicle compiled a database of books challenged in Texas, such as Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. Television: For Perspectives on History, the newsmagazine of the American Historical Association, historian Trishula Patel digs into the real history behind the hit Netflix show Bridgerton and the history of imperialism that would have brought the Sharma family from Bombay to British shores.

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