Ariel epitomizes mermaids now, but these beguiling creatures precede her by millennia, sparking imaginations the world over with a hearty embrace of otherness.

The Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812, an oft overlooked conflict that continues to shape the politics and culture(s) of North America.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Reformed Kirk of Scotland tried to shut down holiday celebrations. The Scottish people didn’t give up easily.

As Islam spread across the Arabian peninsula and the Mesopotamian region, it changed the relationship between gender and musicianship.

Canonical scripture never mentions the parents of the Virgin Mary, but the body of St. Anne was vital to Christianity in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The Russian Revolution promised—and for a time delivered—freedom to the peoples of the Tsarist Empire. That freedom ended with the creation of the USSR.

The Muppet Christmas Carol works hard to get people to engage with Charles Dickens, but its real success is becoming part of the holiday itself.

Well-researched stories from The Verge, Knowable Magazine, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

In the years following World War II, the Japanese people looked to Santa Claus as a symbol of not just kindness and beneficence, but of modernity.

Changes in printing press technology and the history of the symbol may explain its presence in the Wyoming State Prison newspaper, J-A-B-S.