We know a surprising amount about the dental history of the nation’s first president.

They both contain insecticides called pyrethrins, used in ancient Persia. Today we use them in lice-killing shampoos.

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

A critical analysis of both political parties is necessary to understand how the US has created its informal empire—and to envision a different future.

For millennia, humans have exploited galls for medicine, fuel, food, tanning, and dyeing. Some people have considered them miraculous.

The radical environmentalist had a background in labor organizing and wanted to end the misogyny of the movement and the logging industry alike.

Are the departed watching over us, and if so, what are they wearing? Victorian spiritualists believed that ghosts could be captured on film.

J. Ernest Wilkins Jr. worked on the Manhattan Project and signed a petition that the bomb not be used before Japan was offered terms of surrender.

Carnival is known for overturning the rules of society for a short time. But strangely, many scholars don't discuss what a big role alcohol plays in it.

Reddit's popular AITA forum lets readers post and weigh in on everyday ethical questions. But it isn't the first public venue for those discussions.