Where you look for news that was happening during your story will depend on time period. The following sources cover the more recent news but check the time periods covered by each database for your time period.
A leading multidisciplinary research database. Includes full-text peer-reviewed journals, magazines, newspapers, and other valuable resources.
A full-text digital collection of the world's major news. Includes U.S. and international newspapers like USA Today, The Washington Post, Toronto Star, and The Times (U.K.), as well as television and radio news transcripts and real-time news resources such as ABC News, MSNBC, PBS, Associated Press, CNN Wire, and more.
An aggregated database of periodical content bringing together complete databases across all major subject areas, including Business, Health and Medical, Social Sciences, Education, Science and Technology, and Humanities, as well as core titles in the Performing and Visual Arts, History, Religion, and Philosophy, and includes thousands of full-text newspapers from around the world.
Where you look for news that was happening during your story will depend on the time period. The following sources cover a variety of time periods so check the date range to see if your time period is covered. The further back in time you go, the fewer resources that are available in these news sources. For 1435 through 1780, there are databases covering materials from England or "the colonies" or both. Before 1400, your best sources will be books covering the history of the time period. Chronologies can give you a brief outline of major events throughout recorded history--some are listed in another box on this page.
To find additional sources, search Subject Headings like these:
Current events—Periodicals
Boise (Idaho)—Newspapers
History, Modern—20th century—Periodicals
Offers a digital reproduction of full-page images and article images from the New York Times dating back to 1851. It provides genealogists, researchers, and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
Coverage: 1851-2020
A digital reproduction of the Los Angeles Times newspaper.
Coverage: 1851-2000
The Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, a historical digital archive, includes comprehensive indexing of popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States from 1890-1982, such as Reader's Digest, Saturday Evening Post, Scientific American, and more.
Coverage: 1701-1800
Early English news media including more than 1,000 pamphlets, proclamations, newsbooks, and newspapers from the period. Gathered by notable scholar Reverend Charles Burney (1757-1817).
Historians research various topics and write about them in history journals. Perhaps one of the historians wrote an article about your topic. To search the history literature for such articles, choose one of the following databases--depending on your geographic location and time period.
Note: these sources also give information about book reviews and dissertations. You will probably find these sources less useful, although a dissertation does have a wealth of information. If you do find a book review, look the book up in WorldCat Local to see if it is available to you. For a dissertation, look in the database Dissertation and Theses on the Articles, Databases page. More recent dissertations are available in full in the Dissertation and Theses database.