Ramtin Arablouei

The 1619 Project made the argument that the story of the U.S.

really begins with the docking of the first slave ships in 1619.

We will teach our children the truth about America, that we are the most exceptional nation on the face of the earth and getting better every single day.

We're not going to let it fail.

And for some, 1619 and 1776 miss an even bigger story.

This is Kathleen Duvall.

She's a professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

She wrote the book Native Nations, A Millennium in North America.

And while she has a much longer view of history, she still thinks this anniversary means something.

And that's pretty much what Ron Sykowski told us, too.

This is Yuval Levin.

He's overseeing the 250th anniversary project at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

And he thinks this year is a clear moment to celebrate.

Yuval actually thinks the Declaration of Independence is the perfect example of consensus.

I love this idea of taking two radically distinct objects and finding the connections and layering them together to kind of help us understand this history in a new context.

It's kind of like a history remix.

It never did, and it never will.

We'll be digging up moments that shape the course of history.

And sometimes...

This is Throughline editor Julie Kane walking in Chinatown, San Francisco, on a cool Sunday afternoon. She's in one of the oldest Chinatowns in the world, a place where Chinese immigrants have been moving to for over 150 years. It takes up about 24 city blocks, winding up and down steep San Francisco hills.