Longtime Newton resident, historian and outspoken anti-war activist Howard Zinn died of a heart attack Wednesday, according to reports in the Boston Globe. He was 87.

Longtime Newton resident, historian and outspoken anti-war activist Howard Zinn died of a heart attack Wednesday, according to reports in the Boston Globe. He was 87.

Zinn, who lived in Auburndale and was formerly a professor at Boston University, was most famous for writing “A People’s History of the United States,” an account of the country’s past that focuses on minorities and other Americans not usually given voice in history textbooks.

"These are the people who made history, but they have never been called `history makers,'" Zinn told the TAB in 1999, when Fox Television Studios created a five-part miniseries based on the book. "People should study history to get involved and to get underneath the things you see in the media. If you have a knowledge of history, you will be much more skeptical and on-guard of what the government tells you."

In November 2001, Zinn came under fire after speaking at Newton North and comparing U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. In a later interview with the TAB, Zinn defended the speech and praised the students’ independence.

"I think parents underestimate high school kids," he said. "They have minds of their own, they think independently - they believe what they want to believe."