"Noah Webster, The Schoolmaster of the Republic," print by Root & Tinker, 1886

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated

Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.
The rugged coast of the Isles of Scilly, England, U.K.

Life in the Islands of the Dead

Though part of the mainland county of Cornwall, the Scilly Islands offer visitors an encounter with history and the environment like no other.
Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin and His Correspondents: A Lifetime of Letters

An epistolary network was critical for Darwin’s work, allowing him to obtain new information while sparking fresh ideas in his correspondents’ minds.
Garrett Hongo

I Hear America Singing

Japanese American poet Garrett Hongo is a guiding spirit to a glorious cacophony, an exuberant collective thrum made of different tongues and peoples.
Editorial cartoon by William C. Morris, c. 1906

A People’s Bank at the Post Office

The Postal Savings System offered depositors a US government-backed guarantee of security, but it was undone by for-profit private banks.
London Planetrees

London Planetrees, Moon Time, and Dunning-Kruger

The best stories from Slate, Sapiens, and other research-backed publications around the web.
Tabula Indiae Orientalis et Regnorum adjacentium.

Culinary Fusion in the Ancient World

People from eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, and Southeast Asia have been sharing food plants across the Indian Ocean for millennia.
A photo postcard of a French woman by Lucien Waléry

Postcards Revolutionized Pornography 

In the late nineteenth century, the postcard became the ideal medium for expanding the audience for pornography, much to the concern of social elites.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters glue themselves to barrels outside the Treasury on April 07, 2022 in London, England.

Who Can Just Stop Oil?

Groups such as Just Stop Oil are calling for change, but their aims need to be considered with respect to more than a reductionist slogan.
Vintage engraving showing police officers transporting prisoners in to the London Police Courts

The Industrial Revolution and the Rise of Policing

The increased use of machines and the division of labor allowed for the production of standardized products. It also made it easier to fence stolen goods.