Illustration: Head of a man with a severe disease affecting his face by Christopher D' Alton, 1858

Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.24834473

The Ugly History of Chicago’s “Ugly Law”

In the nineteenth century, laws in many parts of the country prohibited "undeserving" disabled people from appearing in public.
Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson and American Empire

After World War I, it looked like President Wilson's ideas about preserving democracy would mean decolonization. But the age of empires wasn't quite over.
Derrick Bell by David Shankbone (2007)

What Is Critical Race Theory?

Critical race theory has become a focus of conservative legislation, often with little understanding of its meaning and history.
Jack Smith, an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals and Del Gainer, a first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals

How to Play Baseball in the 1920s

Swing for the bleachers with these awesome lantern slides from the early years of professional baseball.
Police tape across a driveway

Ending the Myths about Domestic Homicide

There has been a spike in domestic violence amid the COVID-19 crisis, according to a recent report from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
tree with a growing cacao beans on the branches

Will Chocolate Survive Climate Change? Actually, Maybe

The forecast has been bad for domesticated cacao. But some environments in Peru might hold the key to the future of the world's sweet tooth.
Close up of Galapagos giant tortoise

Conscious Robots, Killer Tortoise, and Healthcare Goals

Well-researched stories from Wired, Prospect Magazine, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
An illustration of strawberries

Strawberries and British Identity Forever

Even though they occupied much of South Asia, British civil servants and their wives wanted a taste of home. Strawberries, for instance.
Join or Die

The Serpents of Liberty

From the colonial period to the end of the US Civil War, the rattlesnake sssssssymbolized everything from evil to unity and power.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1984-0216-004,_VEB_Elektronik_Gera,_Ingenieure.jpg

How Computer Science Became a Boys’ Club

Women were the first computer programmers. How, then, did programming become the domain of bearded nerds and manly individualists?