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Illustration of the Battle of Little Big Horn.

The True History of 'Custer's Last Stand'

We're talking about the Battle of Little Bighorn all wrong.
by Olivia B. Waxman via TIME on June 25, 2023
Police and bystanders at night.

Do Cartels Exist?

A revisionist view of the drug wars.
by Rachel Nolan via Harper's on June 20, 2023
George H.W. Bush, wearing a Yale baseball uniform, receives the manuscript of Babe Ruth’s autobiography.

In Babe Ruth’s Final Steps on Public Stage, Two Brushes With History

Babe Ruth's final days revealed his mortality, and made more history, when he encountered a future U.S. president.
by Frederic J. Frommer via Washington Post on June 13, 2023
Dave Benscoter smiling in front of a one hundred year old apple tree.

On the Hunt for America’s Forgotten Apples

Apples no one has ever tasted are still out in the wild. Dave Benscoter, a retired FBI agent, has spent a decade searching for these 100-year-old heirlooms.
by Andrew Zaleski via Outside on May 18, 2023
A pole vaulter pointing the end of the pole at the camera.

Pole Vaulting Over the Iron Curtain

When it became clear that the United States and its allies couldn’t “liberate” Eastern Europe through psychological war and covert ops, they turned to sports.
by Matthew Wills, Toby Rider, Kevin Witherspoon via JSTOR Daily on May 12, 2023
Will Smith as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Tracing the Evolution of Celebrity Memoirs, from Charles Lindbergh to Will Smith

Creating a personal myth allows celebrities to create just that—a myth.
by Landon Y. Jones via Literary Hub on May 9, 2023
Sister Rosetta Tharpe holding a guitar

Amazing Base: A Singer Wed in a D.C. Ballpark, and 19,000 Paid to Attend

Attendees packed D.C.’s Griffith Stadium in 1951 for the wedding spectacular of gospel singer Rosetta Tharpe, who’s now the subject of a show at Ford's Theatre.
by Terence McArdle via Retropolis on May 7, 2023
Revolutionary War reenactors shooting muskets.

“Originalist” Arguments Against Gun Control Get U.S. History Completely Wrong

Gun control is actually an American tradition.
by Mary C. Curtis, Robert J. Spitzer via Slate on May 3, 2023
Collage of BuzzFeed logo and people using electronic devices.

They Did It for the Clicks

How digital media pursued viral traffic at all costs and unleashed chaos.
by Aaron Timms via The New Republic on April 18, 2023
Roland R. Griffith and psychedelic mushrooms..

Roland Griffiths' Magical Profession

His research ushered in the psychedelic renaissance. Now it's changing how he's facing death.
by Tom Bartlett via The Chronicle of Higher Education on April 10, 2023
Image of an AR-15

The Gun that Divides a Nation

The AR-15 thrives in times of tension and tragedy. This is how it came to dominate the marketplace – and loom so large in the American psyche.
by Alex Horton, Josh Dawsey, Todd C. Frankel, Shawn Boburg, Ashley Park via Washington Post on March 27, 2023
French pharmacist and self-help guru Émile Coué waves from the deck of a ship, circa 1923. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

America Was Obsessed with This Self-Help Craze 100 Years Ago

Émile Coué, a French apothecary, started an “autosuggestion” craze that was the biggest thing in America in the early 1920s, practiced by millions every day.
by Gordon F. Sander via Retropolis on March 13, 2023
From left to right, Langston Hughes with Charles S. Johnson; E. Franklin Frazier; Rudolph Fisher and Hubert T. Delaney.

Why Harlem? Considering the Site of “Civil Rights by Copyright,” 100 Years Later

The confluence of Black modernity, self-determinism, and belongingness of Harlem's housing.
by Bo McMillan via Literary Hub on February 13, 2023
A 747 Boeing aircraft takes flight.

Last Boeing 747 Rolls Out of the Factory: How the 'Queen of the Skies' Reigned Over Air Travel

On Sept. 30, 1968, the first Boeing 747 rolled off the assembly line. Some 55 years later, the last one has left its factory.
by Janet Bednarek via The Conversation on January 31, 2023
Buster Keaton holds himself up against two walls.

Puzzled Puss: Buster Keaton’s Star Turn

Keaton had been on the stage longest, risen the highest, fallen the furthest, and left the most indelible legacy.
by John Lahr via London Review of Books on January 19, 2023
Books from the 1990s.

What Literature Do We Study From the 1990s?

The turn-of-the-century literary canon, using data from college syllabi.
by Matthew Daniels via The Pudding on January 11, 2023
Corporate executives sitting on musicians

Ticketmaster’s Dark History

A 40-year saga of kickbacks, threats, political maneuvering, and the humiliation of Pearl Jam.
by Maureen Tkacik, Krista Brown via The American Prospect on December 21, 2022
Scrapbook style image of Bruce Springsteen, washed in red tones, playing guitar in front of a black-and-white background of an empty landscape

Forty Years of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Nebraska’

Decades after its release, the haunted highways and haunted characters of the Boss’s largely acoustic masterpiece still haunt the American psyche.
by Elizabeth Nelson via The Ringer on December 14, 2022
A blue sign reads "It's Time to Vote Y'all"

'Y'all,' That Most Southern of Southernisms, is Going Mainstream – And It's About Time

The use of ‘y'all’ has often been seen as vulgar, low-class and uncultured. That’s starting to change.
by David B. Parker via The Conversation on November 29, 2022
Children in costume looking out a window by the light of a jack o' lantern.

Halloween: A Mystic and Eerie Significance

Despite the prevalence of tricks and spooky spirits in earlier years, the American commercial holiday didn’t develop until the middle of the twentieth century.
by Betsy Golden Kellem via JSTOR Daily on October 26, 2022
Display of banned books in a bookstore.
partner

Today’s Book Bans Echo a Panic Against Comic Books in the 1950s

When a climate of fear exists, people don’t scrutinize the evidence behind claims about children’s reading material.
by Jeremy C. Young via Made By History on October 17, 2022
A Starbucks pumpkin spice latte.

The Secret History of Pumpkin Pie Spice

Why do we eat pumpkin pie spice in the fall?
by Sarah Wassberg via The Food Historian on October 2, 2022
Collage image of the book "Public Opinion," featuring a man reading a newspaper.

"Public Opinion" at 100

Walter Lippmann’s seminal work identified a fundamental problem for modern democratic society that remains as pressing—and intractable—as ever.
by André Forget via The Bulwark on September 16, 2022
Three muscle builders pose at Muscle Beach on the Santa Monica Beach in California, 1949.

Gay Panic on Muscle Beach

The skin and strength on display at Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach aggravated American fears of gender transgressions and homosexuality.
by Livia Gershon, Elsa Devienne via JSTOR Daily on August 26, 2022
Profile outlines of four people standing in line.

Every New Disease Triggers a Search for Someone to Blame

Focusing on a virus’s origins encourages individualized shame while ignoring the broader societal factors that contribute to a disease’s transmission.
by Steven Thrasher via The Atlantic on July 31, 2022
Collage of a hand raised up toward major conservative Christian figures throughout American history.

The Evangelical Question in the History of American Religion

The disturbing conclusion might just be that evangelicalism does not exist.
by Kirsten Sanders via The Hedgehog Review on July 23, 2022
In 1972, Ray Womack, wearing an “Explo 72" shirt, begins a 900-mile run to Dallas, for an evangelical rally.
partner

An Evangelical Youth Event Could Offer Clues About the Movement’s Future

TOGETHER ’22 aims to mimic EXPLO ’72 — which provided hints about the rising conservative evangelical tide.
by Benjamin J. Young via Made By History on June 24, 2022
Hitchhikers sitting on a road, thumbs extended.

That Ol’ Thumb: Hitchhiking

A review of "Driving With Strangers: What Hitchhiking Tells Us About Humanity."
by Mike Jay via London Review of Books on June 23, 2022
Yoko Ono looking pensive.

Yoko Ono’s Art of Defiance

Before she met John Lennon, she was a significant figure in avant-garde circles and had created masterpieces. Did celebrity deprive her of her due as an artist?
by Louis Menand via The New Yorker on June 8, 2022
Crowd at Black Flag concert

The Unraveling of SST Records

Jim Ruland’s book on the legendary punk label helps explain why we lack a meaningful counterculture today.
by Michael Friedrich via The New Republic on May 3, 2022
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