Excerpts

A look back at the bicycle’s meteoric rise to the height of nineteenth century fashion, and its subsequent fall, provides striking parallels to today's bike culture.

In a span of less than 12 hours a German college professor set off a bomb in the U.S. Capitol & assaulted J.P. Morgan Jr. at his home on Long Island.

For people of color in particular, cemeteries can be a cruel reminders of trauma both past and present.

In 1978, an artist/activist hand-dyed and stitched the first rainbow flags for San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade. The rest is LGBT history.

In early 1945, a six-panel comic in a U.S. pamphlet offered a visceral depiction of the Third Reich's killing machine.

Islam in America dates to the founding fathers, says Smithsonian’s religion curator Peter Manseau.

For the Pentagon, films like "Top Gun: Maverick" are more than just a movie.

Smithsonian curator of religion Peter Manseau weighs in on a history that must be told.

“It is a better likeness of Lincoln than anything in plaster, stone, marble, or bronze that I have ever seen."

A Southern Poverty Law Center study identified over 1,500 publicly-displayed symbols of the Confederacy in the South and beyond.

Before Julia Child became a chef, she worked for the forerunner of the CIA in Washington, developing shark repellent during World War II.

Denmark Vesey expressed the Bible’s anti-slavery messages.

Scientists have found toxic levels of the chemical at large. And some groups are making the case to produce even more.

A case of 18th-century politicking has stymied our ability to deal with a 21st-century crisis.

An alliance between Jewish activists and congressional neocons made Soviet Jewry a key issue in superpower relations—and reshaped American Jewish politics.

An intimate look at the creation of an iconic album.

Counterculture-inspired research flourished in the Age of Aquarius.

The Southern Baptist Convention is tearing itself apart over its leaders’ long-running cover-up of abusers in its ranks. But there’s a deeper reckoning below.

Authorities who investigated Jane Stanford’s mysterious death said the wealthy widow had no enemies. A new book finds that she had many.

The righteous rage of John Brown.

The annual celebration helped spur an anti-colonial movement for Africa.

The history of control and decontrol in the oil market.

John Huston's 1945 movie The Battle of San Pietro presents itself as a war documentary, but contains staged scenes. What should we make of it?

On the Grateful Dead's “New Speedway Boogie,” and the true end of the Sixties.

Kevin Driscoll’s study of early Internet communities contains a vision for a less hostile and homogenous future of social networking.

“We’re the virus.” So read a tweet in March praising reports of less pollution in countries under COVID-19 lockdown. By mid-April, it had nearly 300,000 likes.

Of all the objections NIMBYs raise to new housing and infrastructure, perhaps the most risible is that their community is already too crowded.

These Progressive Era Republicans wanted to run the Federal government like a business.

Looking back on 150 years of history shows that American women grappled with miscarriages amid different legal, medical, and racial norms.

When Native Americans met George Washington in 1753, they called him by the Algonquian name "Conotocarious," meaning "town taker" or "devourer of villages."

Kim Stanley Robinson on how the High Sierra has influenced his science fiction.

Michael Washburn explains what we can glean from the failure of Tom Petty's 1985 concept album "Southern Accents."

Confessions of an FBI special agent.

How the patron saint of progressive urban planning’s ideas and ideals were implemented – and corrupted.

The long, strange saga of government cheese.

A conversation with Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on his new book, which investigates the co-option of identity politics and the importance of coalitional organizing. 

An 1860 census record offers a glimpse into the choices available to pregnant women who were enslaved.

Researchers have found hair dye bottles and evidence of a photographic studio at Camp Nelson—a former Union camp.

Gameplay can be useful in history classrooms – but manufacturers have to think about how children will be affected by the competition.

Robert Benjamin Smith inaugurated murder for the media age.

As more women embraced music as a profession, more men became worried that the world of the orchestra was losing its masculinity.

The commission is charged with renaming bases whose names currently honor Confederate leaders.

The Friends of the SNCC published the story of the struggle for freedom in the 1960s.

One of the great pieces of unfinished business for the Democratic Party.

The Oneida Community's Christian form of collectivism was transported to California in the 1880s, when the original Oneida Community fell apart.

In the Great Depression, Borden sought a new spokescow to help preserve its traditional agrarian image.

In 1999, NRA leaders agonized over what to do about Columbine, paving the way for the group's approach to mass shootings ever since.

As conservative groups give up on public schools, the fight today is about looting public resources.

Decades of biological research haven't improved diagnosis or treatment. We should look to society, not to the brain.

Biking innovations brought riders freedom. But in a world built for cars, life behind handlebars is both charmed and dangerous.