Ground mustard

Peppers and Spice and Everything Nice

How humans have acquired, used, and assigned cultural value to spices, from sage to cinnamon, chili pepper to salt.
Photograph: Anti-gay marriage protestors pray outside the Massachusetts State House March 11, 2004 in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Source: Michael Springer/Getty

What is Fundamentalism?

Fundamentalism, which shifts the balance between authority structures and the indescribable divine, emerged after medieval society gave way to the modern.
Welder-trainee Josie Lucille Owens plies her trade on the SS George Washington Carver at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, CA, 1943

Toxic Legacies of WWII: Pollution and Segregation

Wartime production led directly to environmental and social injustices, polluting land and bodies in ways that continue to shape public policy and race relations.
Mary Ellen Wilson

Origins of Child Protection

Legend has it that the campaign to save abused children in New York was driven by the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The truth is more complicated.
a pictorial map of the life of Mark Twain

Pictorial Maps of the United States

Explore US history with these maps of national parks, folklore, 1930s Greyhound bus routes, and more!
The Mirabal sisters

Remembering the Mirabal Sisters

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women honors three sisters who were murdered by the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.

This Revolution Will Be Amplified

From Lil Nas X to Valerie June to Darius Rucker, Black musicians are staking their claim in country music. Francesca T. Royster explains.
A voter checks in at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3103 polling location on November 8, 2022 in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

What Makes Us Vote the Way We Do?

According to some political scientists, it's more about group identity than personal interests.
two people knee before a white cross and flowers at a makeshift memorial for the five people killed by a gunman during a mass shooting at Club Q in Colorado

Red Flag Laws and the Colorado LGBTQ Club Shooting

What are red flag laws? Could they have prevented the killing at Club Q?
Lyrebird

Tricky Birds, Birmingham Murders, and Dance Music

Well-researched stories from The Atlantic, The Republic, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.