And have we been misinterpreting Leviticus? | Continue reading
Their lives didn't stop when the judge sentenced them to life in prison. Then what? A 1994 issue of The Angolite profiled the longest-serving Americans. | Continue reading
Skeptics in Sweden voiced concerns from the get-go. Even automotive industry journalists wondered why anybody needed an SUV to go to the opera. | Continue reading
Like for real real. | Continue reading
The mundane interface between human and machine caused social anxiety in the late nineteenth century. | Continue reading
On September 27, 1822, the French philologist announced that he’d decrypted the key that would unlock Egypt’s ancient past. | Continue reading
As chronicled by Chinese poet Yu Jianwu, the use of fire and smoke for time measurement dates back to at least the sixth century CE. | Continue reading
Remembering the Sky Parlor for lost children and the public’s fascination with those who went astray. | Continue reading
An expansive collection of postcards captures the evolving cultural landscape of Southern California—particularly greater Los Angeles—in the twentieth century. | Continue reading
Salvador Allende’s attempt to network the national economy mirrored his government’s struggle to balance centralization and decentralization. | Continue reading
Is social cohesion possible in plural societies? Philosopher H. L. A. Hart weighed in amid debates on abortion and same-sex relationships. | Continue reading
Not so fast, Wordle. The Fifteen Puzzle, a challenge that inspired poetry, has obsessed fans for more than a century. | Continue reading
The East India Company’s London museum stored the stuff of empire, feeding the growth of new collections-based disciplines and scientific societies. | Continue reading
Immigrant artist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot used his skills to accurately represent the details—and the sublimity—of our solar system. | Continue reading
Pachappa Camp, the first Korean-organized immigrant settlement in the United States, was established through the efforts of Ahn Chang Ho. | Continue reading
Presley’s embrace of martial arts resonated with working- and middle-class Americans who felt alienated from the US justice system. | Continue reading
Shakespeare’s tedious old fool was also a dad just doing his best. | Continue reading
Scripted from front-page news, the Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper plays were part entertainment, part protest, and entirely educational. | Continue reading
From the light-bulb dress to galvanic belts, electrified clothing offered a way to experience and conquer a mysterious and vigorous force. | Continue reading
Generally lazy, often friendly, the dogs of India know how to relax. | Continue reading
In 1884, educator Jane Groom defied naysayers to found a community for working-class Deaf people on prairies of Manitoba. | Continue reading
What’s there to love about “bad” coffee? For much of the world, plenty. | Continue reading
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed freedom for enslaved people in America on January 1, 1863. Today, we've annotated the Emancipation Proclamation for readers. | Continue reading
Why is cork so strongly associated with bottle stoppers? The answer goes back centuries. | Continue reading
There's no shortage of online dating sites and apps. But there’s one common problem with these services: they’re all looking at the wrong data. Dating apps should take a hint from Netflix's algorithm. | Continue reading
The peanut, a natural hybrid of two species, originated in Bolivia. It now plays a critical role in food cultures around the world. | Continue reading
Related links to free scholarly context on JSTOR for the foundational document in American government. | Continue reading
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s iconic speech, annotated with relevant scholarship on the literary, political, and religious roots of his words. | Continue reading
Tags decentralized and democratized the organization of information. What became of "social tagging?" | Continue reading
This month, I’m doing something a little different with my column: I’m sharing the system I use to write it, so that you can use or adapt my system. | Continue reading
Writing software has not only changed the way we write; it's changed the way we read. It pays to think about what we want from our writing tools. | Continue reading
Class and religious differences helped thwart the would-be friendship between two cultural titans, suggesting opposites may attract, but may not always adhere. | Continue reading
Digitization allows researchers to trace editorial and authorial changes in archival content. Both are central to the study of this famous abolitionist pamphlet. | Continue reading
Is it really only dads who can tell dad jokes? And is this corny humor universal? Our linguist takes a deep dive. | Continue reading
Terence McKenna was an evangelist for the use of psilocybin and other mind-altering drugs, as a way to transcend and escape “untrammeled rationalism.” | Continue reading
These collective rituals of death brought meaning and identity to urban, working-class youth. | Continue reading
In Early America, some prestigious residents advocated for the replacement of cane sugar, supplied by enslaved workers, with maple sugar from family farms. | Continue reading
Dogs can use their superb sense of smell to identify disease in human patients. What’s keeping them from using this ability in the healthcare industry? | Continue reading
The world’s first video game made its debut at the Westinghouse pavilion at the New York World's Fair in 1939. Read all about it! | Continue reading
With the dawn of artificial intelligence, a slew of new machine learning tools promise to help protect us with data. | Continue reading
Broken heart syndrome, or Takotsubo syndrome, is thought to be caused by stress. It seems to be on the increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. | Continue reading
With WWI coming to end, 1918 should have been a good year for the movies. Then along came influenza. | Continue reading
The man who introduced mesmerism to the US was a slave-owner from Guadeloupe, where planters were experimenting with “magnetizing” their enslaved people. | Continue reading
Gender roles in Edo Japan recognized an in-between position for young men, called Wakashu, that was erased as Japan westernized. | Continue reading
Floating masses of fire ants have been observed drifting in the floodwaters resulting from Hurricane Harvey. How does a swarm of fire ants float? | Continue reading
In moving away from fossil fuels, some in aviation are thinking of bringing back helium-assisted flight. | Continue reading
Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala left behind a one-of-a-kind object that undermines the crónicas de Indias. | Continue reading
Long before Facebook or Twitter, an L.L. Bean-style catalog for hippies inspired the creation of one of the world’s first social networks. | Continue reading