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Today, there's a statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Park across the street from the White House. But a few decades before he became president, he was ready to give up on the nascent United States.

Ideas

As soon as it began, the US almost fell apart

Our country was founded on noble words and visions, but what really stitched it together was something as fickle as self-interest. 3:00 a.m.

Reggie Jackson, left, in 1966. The outfielder from Arizona State University was the Kansas City Athletics' No. 1 pick in the baseball draft. He's pictured here with the team's executive vice president, Ed Lopat, after he signed a contract for $85,000 in Kansas City, Mo.

Columns

The agony — and necessity — of Reggie Jackson’s memories about racism

His painful recollections of playing in the 1960s South are decades old, but the ache of what he endured remains. 3:00 a.m.

A child played as women rested on a bench in front of destroyed residential buildings in Kostyantynivka, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, on June 22.

Ideas

Neutrality for Ukraine is the best route to peace

Ukraine's best chance for peace with Russia may be neutrality. That means Washington has to stop pretending it can dominate the world. 10:57 a.m.

Top illustration, sperm whale hunts on the Pacific Ocean. Below, a sperm whale in its death throes. By George A. Gould, who sailed on the Columbia out of Nantucket from 1841 to 1845, and whose journal is in the Kendall Collection at the New Bedford Whaling Museum.

Ideas

Art created below decks slick with blubber and blood

Whalemen spent years crossing oceans hunting leviathans. The illustrated journals they left behind tell us how they lived — and very nearly died. 12:16 p.m.

Darwin, Dickinson, and excerpts of their writing.

Ideas

Charles Darwin and Emily Dickinson, kindred spirits in art and science

The founder of evolutionary theory and the great Massachusetts poet were driven by overlapping ideas. 9:39 a.m.

Catcher Josh Gibson, pictured, became Major League Baseball's career leader with a .372 batting average, surpassing Ty Cobb's .367, after Negro Leagues records were incorporated.

Columns

Negro League baseball players are finally recognized in MLB’s record books

For decades their record-breaking achievements were ignored since they didn’t play in the league from which they were banned because they were Black. 3:00 a.m.