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

Soon after a team of engineers discovered a moth in a machine at Harvard, the word "bug" became a standard part of the programmer's lexicon. Or did it?

Organic tomato farmers know that cover crops are key for ensuring adequate nitrogen supply in the soil each year. But not all covers are equal.

The years of silent films are sometimes described as a "golden era" in the cultural history of the American Deaf community.

Fashion houses in 1920s Paris used copyright laws to protect their designs. In New York, not so much.

Perhaps no other bard has captured the sentiments of Ukraine and its emigrants as fully as Taras Shevchenko.

In the nineteenth century, the state used a new education system to shape young citizens' attitudes toward a shrinking empire and the emerging Republic.

Published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, this single 77 by 55 centimeter sheet tells multiple stories in both text and illustration.

Will the real Civil War photographer please stand up?

For the enslaved people of Jamaica, the lacebark tree was a valuable natural resource and a means of asserting one's dignity.