Giacomo Casanova by Francesco Narici

Casanova was Famous for Being Famous

Giacomo Casanova achieved celebrity not through any particular achievement but by mingling with famous people and making himself the subject of gossip.
Japan Airlines Air Hostesses, 1951

The Ban on Japanese Aircraft Pilots, 1945–1952

The defeated Japanese weren’t allowed to pilot, own, build, or even research airplanes during the post-World War II occupation by the United States.
Prince of Wales, Edward VII with Sir Jung Bahadoor shooting a tiger during a hunting expedition in India,1876

Resisting British Hunters in India

In nineteenth-century India, many locals stood up against British hunting—sometimes at the cost of their own lives—as a means of cultural conservation.
The Confederate States almanac for 1862

On Harvests and Histories

Almanacs from the Civil War era reveal how two sides of an embattled nation used data from the natural world to legitimize their claims to statehood.
Monrovia, Liberia, 1910

Poland’s Colonial Dreams

With the resurrection of a Polish state in the aftermath of World War I, Poland seriously flirted with colonialism—in Liberia.
An illustration of a hand holding a set of hand cuffs

A True Crime Syllabus

How did we become so obsessed with “true crime”? This multidisciplinary syllabus shows how we view crime as a whole and how those views have changed over time.
Undated broadsheet, Printed Ephemera Collection, Portfolio 23, Folder 11, Library of Congress, Washington, DC. ht

The Rise of Anti-Societies

In the early 1800s, Americans formed all sorts of anti-vice societies, triggering jokes and serious resistance to reform through a wave of anti-societies.
Dublin Castle, 1830

Weaponizing Homophobia in Ireland

One of the arguments of Irish nationalism was that English rule was morally corrupting. There was no better example of this than same-sex desire.
Distribution of coal to the poor at Christmas by the Parish Beadle, c. 1888

Banning Christmas Dinner

Poor laws passed in Great Britain in the 1830s reversed a centuries-old tradition to forbid workhouses from serving roast beef and plum pudding at Christmas.
Ulysses

Ulysses Obscenity Decision: Annotated

In December 1933, Judge John Woolsey issued what would become one of the best known legal decisions on obscenity in United States history.