Petroglyph engravings in the side of a rock formation in the desert.

Department of History News

The Department of History offers a curriculum that embraces the panorama of the past while also helping students fulfill their constitutions, humanities, multicultural, and international requirements. Our programs and courses also aim to enrich student's abilities to research, critically analyze, and effectively communicate.

Current History News

UNLV XMAS
Campus News |

This month’s frosty headlines and highlights from the students and faculty of UNLV.

Micca House in Paradise Valley, Nevada
Arts and Culture |

Historic preservation group calls for action to sustain survival of 12 Silver State treasures.

unlv pumpkins
Campus News |

A monthly roundup of the top news stories at UNLV, featuring the presidential election, gaming partnerships, and much more.

Michael Green
Business and Community |

Has candidate mudslinging and voter vitriol always been this unpleasant? UNLV history expert Michael Green explains the evolution of political decorum in America.

Undergrad researcher Benjamin Sabir helps H. Jeremy Cho examine an atmospheric water harvesting device. (Jeff Scheid/UNLV)
Campus News |

A monthly roundup of the top news stories featuring UNLV staff and students.

Students pass by Lied Library as they walk campus on the first day of Fall 2024 semester classes
Campus News |

A collection of news highlights featuring students and faculty.

History In The News

Nevada Independent

The new year is generally regarded as an opportunity to start fresh — resolutions abound, grand plans are launched. But in a society focused on what’s new, the preservation of old places — from culturally important indigenous lands to historic buildings in some of Nevada’s biggest and smallest cities — is an uphill battle.

City Cast Las Vegas

When someone says they’re from Las Vegas, where do they specifically mean? The majority of the Valley lives in one of the adjacent municipalities or unincorporated Clark County. So how did we get this weird patchwork of townships and jurisdictions, and how did it set up the city and the county for their many tensions today? We’re sharing our notes in this re-airing of a popular episode — co-host Dayvid Figler talks to UNLV history professor Michael Green about the last century of Las Vegas and Clark County history, and how a city-county showdown brought us to this utterly unique arrangement.

Las Vegas Review Journal

Cowboy boots epitomize America’s approach to style. From the flat rubber-soled option yanked on in the predawn hours of a long shift to the couture-adjacent styles headed to a televised red carpet, the origins of cowboy boots “are incredibly practical,” says Deirdre Clemente, the associate director of UNLV’s public history program.

IrishStar.com

Rob Bauer, a top NATO official, has warned Western businesses to prepare for a 'wartime scenario' as global World War Three fears escalate. With strife in the Middle East, Ukraine and the recent reports that Vladimir Putin has lowered the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons, the possibility of a global war has increasingly been discussed in political circles.

The Daily Express US

With Russia's war on Ukraine exceeding more than 1,000 days, Joe Biden greenlighted Kyiv using American-made ATACMS missiles to strike back across the border. This sparked an angry reaction from Vladimir Putin, who retaliated by firing an intermediate-range ballistic missile in a warning to the West.

Las Vegas Review-Journal En Español

Newcomers to Nevada might be surprised to learn that the state capital is not in the more populous Las Vegas area, or even the “biggest little city” of Reno, but is instead 30 miles south of Reno and nearly a seven-hour drive from the state’s population center.

History Experts

An expert on commercial aviation, airport history, and travel.
Kirk is an expert who studies the intersections of cultural and environmental history in the modern U.S. with a special interest in the American West.
A historian of European culture from the age of Enlightenment through the present day.
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An expert in American history.
An expert on the history and practice of juvenile justice. 
An expert on Russia, religion, and U.S. and international history.

Recent History Accomplishments

Noria Litaker's (History) recent book, "Bedazzled Saints: Catacomb Relics in Early Modern Bavaria," won the Gerald Strauss Prize awarded by the Sixteenth Century Society. The prize recognizes the best book published in English during the preceding year in the field of German Reformation history. 
Jeff Schauer (History) participated in the annual meeting of the North American Conference on British Studies in Denver. Schauer organized a panel on "Race, Religion, and Resources in the late-colonial era." Schauer's paper was titled "The Whiteness of Black Lechwe: Race and Gender in Colonial Conservation Work and Writing in Northern…
John Curry (History) attended the College Board Advanced Placement World History: Modern Examination Development Committee meeting, held in Reston, Virginia, as the Higher Education Co-Chair representative. The meeting spent four days designing and finalizing the questions for several different versions of next year's Advanced Placement exams for…
David Tanenhaus (Law; History) delivered the Brieland Lecture on "In the Meantime, the Past and Future of Juvenile Justice." as the 17th Brieland Visiting Scholar at the University of Illinois School of Social Work.
Michael J. Alarid (History) was interviewed for the New Books Network podcast by host Miranda Melcher of City, University of London. The interview explores the origins, methods, and themes of his book, Hispano Bastion: New Mexican Power in the Age of Manifest Destiny, 1837-1860 (University of New Mexico Press, 2022).
John Curry (History) was published in a Book Forum in the online journal Maydan, a publication of the Abu Sulayman Center for Global Islamic Studies at George Mason University. The forum discussed the recent publication of Hayrettin Yücesoy's "Disenchanting the Caliphate: The Secular Discipline of Power in Abbasid…