The Future of America's Past

Future of America's Past is a VPM series that offers a look at historical moments with relevance to current events.

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the U.S. military and the FBI arrested more than 110,000 American citizens of Japanese ancestry.

From Spanish missions, to a French shipwreck, to a former sugarcane plantation, we visit to ask: How did Texas become Texas?

On March 25, 1911, New York City’s Triangle Shirtwaist Factory burst into flames, and 146 workers — nearly all young women, many of them teenage immigrants — perished.

At Virginia’s Fort Monroe, we discover a remarkable place: the spot where slavery began in British North America, and the site where it began to unravel during the Civil War.

Journey to the front lines of American history.