Jacques Cartier at Hochelaga engraving from A popular history of the United States: from the first discovery of the western hemisphere by the Northmen, to the end of the first century of the union of the states; preceded by a sketch of the prehistoric period and the age of the mound builders

Plant of the Month: Tree of Life

Indigenous people in North America used the conifer as an effective cure for scurvy during cold winters.
A finger pressing a doorbell, circa 1950.

When the Push Button Was New, People Were Freaked

The mundane interface between human and machine caused social anxiety in the late nineteenth century.
A cowboy

Texas Identity, Smart Trees, and Cicada Weirdness

Well-researched stories from Texas Observer, Aeon, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Bathymetrical Chart of the Oceans showing the Deeps According to Sir John Murray, 1912

Wait, There’s Noise Pollution at the Bottom of the Ocean?

Anthropogenic sounds have made it all the way down into the deepest place on Earth—Challenger Deep, in the Mariana Trench.
Dried flowers

Which Flowers Bloom First and Why?

A massive collection of dried flower specimens demonstrates that climate change disrupts the timing of spring blooms.
Nurses withdraw blood for testing from a volunteer taking part in the AIDSVAX B/E vaccine trial July 18, 2002 at the Boon Mee Clinic in Bangkok, Thailand.

RV144: The Largest HIV Vaccine Trial in History

One of the biggest advances in AIDS vaccine research was a controversial, landmark treatment that tested a new vaccine on 16,000 Thai volunteers.
Dizzy Gillespie

What Is Jazz Poetry?

The form flourished in the 1950s, as poets and musicians inspired each other to new heights.
Alphonse Bertillon, first head of the Forensic Identification Service of the Prefecture de Police in Paris (1893).

The Origins of the Mug Shot

US police departments began taking photographs of people they arrested in the 1850s.
U.S.S. Pueblo, 1968

Can Thucydides Teach Us Why We Go to War?

A contemporary scholar uses the ancient Greek historian to explain the 1968 Pueblo Crisis in North Korea.
Cover of Mdlle Riego's Knitting Book

Victorian Knitting Manuals Collection

The first manuals for knitting were printed in the 1830s. Those interested in the history of knitting will find them a rich primary source for research.