The Bobcat Fire burns through the Angeles National Forest on September 11, 2020 north of Monrovia, California.

A Recipe for Ancient Wildfires

The earliest wildfires raged long before humans, and they only needed three ingredients to get started.
Marilyn Monroe at Hollywood agent Johnny Hyde's backyard, 1950

How Hollywood Sold Glamour

The complicated notion of glamour in classic Hollywood, suggesting that stars were aloof and unknowable, was also a means to sell products.
Mothers' Crusade for Victory over Communism

The Red Scare and Women in Government

In 1952, a government administrator named Mary Dublin Keyserling was accused of being a communist. The attack on her was also an attack on feminism.
Sugar Skulls

What Do Sugar Skulls Mean on El Día de los Muertos?

The iconography of Mexico's Día de los Muertos has become wildly popular outside Latino communities. But where did the skulls and skeletons come from?
Amphibian attack of spanish-tlaxcallan force

How Aztecs Reacted to Colonial Epidemics

Colonial exploitation made the indigenous Aztec people disproportionately vulnerable to epidemics. Indigenous accounts show their perspective.
Botanical manuscript of 450 watercolors of flowers and plants

Plant of the Month: Dittany

Did women in the premodern world have much agency over reproduction? Their use of plants like dittany suggests that they did.
Four top pickers holding barrels of beans. Morrisvile. 1943.

The Brooklyn College Farm Labor Project of the 1940s

The coronavirus pandemic left farmers falling back on students to pick crops. But it certainly wasn’t the first time.
Photograph: A woman helps in the research into hay fever by breathing into a machine that records breathing patterns. 

Source: Getty

Breathing Machines, New Fires, and Life on Venus

Well-researched stories from Aeon, Yale 360, and more great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.
Daughter sitting in working mothers lap

Class and Choice in “Mommy Track” Jobs

During a childcare crisis, it's important to listen to mothers who have made sacrifices for their kids. But not all sacrifices are identical.
Astronaut Sidney M. Gutierrez, mission commander, pauses on the flight deck during Earth observations on the Space Shuttle Endeavour, 1994

Sidney M. Gutierrez: Shooting for the Stars

The first U.S.-born Latino astronaut to pilot a space mission blazed the long road to NASA with determination and optimism.