For many Americans, spelling bees are a part of growing up in the United States. The challenge is obvious. From the moment kids begin to learn to read, there are clear differences between how words ...

Long before Noah Webster completed his 1828 magnum opus, “An American Dictionary of the English Language,” he published a wildly successful primer called “A Grammatical Institute of the English ...

This post is in partnership with History Today. The article below was originally published at HistoryToday.com. Note: Usually, History Today posts appear on TIME.com with American spellings. For this ...

In the summer of 1859, a year before his election to the U.S. presidency, Abraham Lincoln received a curious letter in the mail. Addressed to “A. Linkon Esq.” and dated “Ogust 6,” it was written in ...