In the 1940s, these short films set to music transgressed Hollywood’s racial mythology to create space for Black artists to experiment—and have fun.

Well-researched stories from Atlas Obscura, Yale Environment 360, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Before Brown v. Board of Education, Black activists split between integrationist and separatist factions, particularly at New Jersey’s Bordentown School.

Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.

Most people in the United States have a stove in their kitchen. But how did this “must-have” come to be?

Coups in autocracies are frequently followed by elections, which are then followed by new coup attempts. Why do elections increase coup risk?

In the late nineteenth century, historian John Addington Symonds fought back against his colleagues’ refusal to acknowledge historical same-sex relationships.

Now an icon of modernism and avant-garde design, the Eiffel Tower was once seen by Parisian writers and artists as a blight on the cityscape.

King cake, eaten during Carnival season in New Orleans, is more than just a sugar-sprinkled treat. Should students learn about its connections to white supremacy?

New Orleans’ ethnic diversity and lack of public welfare programs contributed to a culture of mutual aid organizations—and huge, festive parades.