In eighteenth-century New England, funeral attendees went home with funeral tokens–usually a pair of gloves or a ring that declared their sorrow.

The Hays Code kept Hollywood on a short leash until the Supreme Court decided in 1952 that films were protected by the First Amendment.

The grainy pictures speak for themselves. Or so thought many Americans who watched the video of the March 3rd, 1991, beating of motorist Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.

In the rural Indian province of Bihar, Husk Power Systems is converting leftover rice husks into biofuel. Now they're building mini-power plants around the country, and expanding into Tanzania.

It’s said that the best jokes, like the best mysteries, are ones where the punchline is contained in the set-up. Jordan Peele's Get Out offers a sinister reworking of this maxim.

Russian serfdom and American slavery ended within two years of each other; the defenders of these systems of bondage surprisingly shared many of the same arguments.

Well-researched stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship. Brought to you each Tuesday from the editors of JSTOR Daily.

In the early years of food stamps the goal wasn't necessarily to feed America's poor. The idea was to buttress the price of food after the decline in crop prices had created a crisis in rural America.

Many doctors embraced anesthesia, but critics in the medical community protested its use, giving rise to what's known as the “ether controversy.”

In a world full of wild insect defenses, bombardier beetles stand out for the violent chemical reaction they employ to deter enemies.