The evolving role of VP candidates

Plus: Why we may never know who betrayed Anne Frank |

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By Made by History / Produced by Olivia B. Waxman In his introduction to America, newly minted Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz immediately went on the attack against Donald Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance. As Charles J. Holden explains in  Made by History, that shouldn’t be surprising. Modern vice presidential nominees get judged largely on how well they serve as “attack dogs.” But as Holden explores, that wasn’t always the case. Before the 1970s, the role varied from campaign to campaign—and when the label first debuted, it was a pejorative. That dynamic quickly shifted as campaigns recognized the value in letting the vice presidential candidate fling mud, while the presidential nominee remained above the fray. Donald Trump changed that, and presidential candidates now regularly assail their opponents. But even so, as Holden notes, the VP candidate can't be afraid to bare his teeth.               The Dan David Prize, the largest history prize in the world (and a sponsor of Made by History), annually awards $300,000 each to nine early and mid-career scholars and practitioners in historical disciplines, acknowledging their outstanding achievements to date and to support future work. Anyone can nominate a practitioner in the relevant disciplines, and nominations for the 2025 Prize are open until Sept. 30. For more information visit  dandavidprize.org/nominate .

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FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1969: John Wayne TIME The Aug. 8, 1969, cover of TIME “Wayne has been honing and buffing that self in some 250 pictures mostly westerns for 40 years…Audiences now recognize him as a grandfather image, using booze for arterial Antifreeze, putting off winter for one more day. They also recognize Wayne as an actor of force and persuasion. And the frontier town of Hollywood, which has never granted Wayne a single Academy Award, has begun to realize that it might just be a little behind in its payments.” Read More » This week in 1981: Ice cream HENRY WOLF The Aug. 10, 1981, cover of TIME “Are we really talking about $2 for just one scoop and some candy crumbs? Has everybody gone crazy? Students of the ridiculous will answer these questions in different ways. What is undeniably true is that serious eaters, especially in college towns and in those East Coast and West Coast cities whose inhabitants like to think of themselves as civilized, no longer have the slightest tolerance for ice cream ordinaire…at this stage in the decline of the West, instinct tells us that we have a right to live in the golden age of something. Why should that something be acid rain or rocket launchers? Why not—an Oreo-mint cone, please, with a scoop of cantaloupe, and jimmies—do our wistful dreaming about one of civilization’s benign marvels, ice cream?” Read More » This week in 2004: Michael Phelps TIME The Aug. 9, 2004, cover of TIME “Even before a single Olympic medal has been hung around his neck, Michael Phelps is rewriting the manual on what it means to be a world-class swimmer. Entered in five individual events and a candidate for each of the three relay races in Athens, Phelps has the potential to win eight gold medals, and eclipse the standard held by Mark Spitz, who won seven golds in 1972. It’s a long shot, but no one is better prepared to do it. Just 19, Phelps holds the world record in three of those five individual events and is a fingernail’s distance from the record in a fourth. Read More »

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