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

Outdoor view
Campus News |

A collection of top headlines featuring UNLV faculty and students.

undergraduates
Campus News |

A collection of top headlines featuring UNLV faculty and students.

springtime bees
Campus News |

A flowery collection of top headlines featuring UNLV faculty and students.

Campus landscape
Campus News |

Some of the hottest headlines featuring UNLV faculty, staff, and students.

Some early studying during the opening week of the Spring 2026 semester (Josh Hawkins/UNLV).
Campus News |

A look at some of the most eye-grabbing headlines featuring UNLV faculty, staff, and students.

Fall 25 commencement2
Campus News |

A collection of the top news headlines featuring UNLV faculty and students.

History In The News

KSNV-TV: News 3

Primm, a small oasis community on the California state line, is no longer facing the prospect of becoming a modern-day ghost town after a deal was finalized to shift several local properties to Terrible’s.

Nevada Independent

At least three Vegas legends claimed inventing the all-you-can-eat buffet.

PBS

A new exhibit is set to open at the Rotunda Gallery honoring America at 250. The exhibit features a range of items from traditional Southern Paiute.

NPR

Primm, Nevada, was once a beacon in the desert for travelers driving on Interstate 15 from Southern California to Las Vegas — a family-friendly destination, and the first place to gamble right over the Nevada border. The proliferation of casinos across America, however, has sent the town on a long decline.

Inside Asian Gaming

It proved to be quite the prophetic question at a time when Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, the wife of former President Bill, were about to fight it out to become the 45th President of the United States of America. This was the topic of IAG’s 2016 cover story, “Clinton v Trump,” which asked more specifically what their respective appointments could mean for the gaming industry domestically and abroad.

Associated Press

On a cool fall evening after the end of World War II, Las Vegas watched “officialdom and ‘cafe society’ turn out for the opening of America’s first all-you-can-eat buffet,” a local paper wrote.

History Experts

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An expert in American history.
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.
An expert on the history and practice of juvenile justice. 
A historian and curator of 20th century American culture, specializing in clothing, political fashion, and the use of fashion in the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. 
An expert in Nevada, Civil War, and gaming history.
Finding the intersection of the end of British colonial rule in African and how it affected wildlife conservation.

Recent History Accomplishments

John Curry (History) presented a paper entitled "Tracking the Lives of Sufi Leaders Through Their Mecmua Collections" at a symposium organized on "Mecmuas in the Ottoman World: Interdisciplinary Approaches and Current Research." Held in June at the University of Vienna in Austria, the workshop focused on the use of pre-modern handbooks…
Michelle Tusan (History) published, ‘1776: Teaching the Declaration of Independence’ in the Journal of British Studies.
Michael Green (History) presented two programs for "250 to 250," a project created by historian Heather Cox Richardson examining the history of the United States ahead of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
Susan Lee Johnson (History) delivered the opening plenary address at the Mormon History Association annual conference held in Las Vegas June 4-7. The invited address was entitled, "Unoriginal Sins: Slavery, Captivity, and Kinship in Western Places." In addition, Johnson chaired and moderated a session at the conference entitled, "Intimate Subjects…
John Curry (History) presented a paper at a three-part symposium held at the University of California, Los Angeles, entitled "Strange Synchronicities and Familiar Parallels in Asia, 1600–1800: Joseph Fletcher’s Plane Ride Revisited." The three-part symposium aimed to compare the three major empires of the Ottomans, Qing China, and the Mughal…
John Curry (History) was a presenter on a roundtable at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Council of Latin American Studies (SECOLAS) this past weekend. The roundtable was titled "Reactions to Authoritarianism: Connecting the Historical to the Contemporary," and included several UNLV faculty members from various global fields…