Rene Carmille has been called the first ethical hacker for sabotaging the computerization of data about French Jews during World War II.

Extra Credit: Our pick of stories from around the web that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

The bombing of Dresden, Germany, which began February 13, 1945, was once viewed as a historical footnote. Until Slaughterhouse-Five was published.

Edgar Allan Poe knew that readers would add their visual image of the author to his work to create a personality that informed their reading.

The mystery surrounding the 1911 theft and subsequent conspiracy theory catapulted the Mona Lisa into the popular imagination.

The founders of Women’s Studies were overwhelmingly white, and focused on the experiences of white, heterosexual women.

The deserts of Namibia are dotted with odd circular bare patches, ringed by the dry desert grasses. They're called "fairy circles." It’s a desert whodunit.

Ever since the publication of White Teeth, Zadie Smith has made a career of writing about the actual experiences behind topics like race and immigration.

For women physicians, WWI was an opportunity for service that highlighted their deeply ambiguous position, as Ellen More explained in a 1989 paper.

A claque is a centuries-old showmanship technique that has been used by entertainers and politicians since the Roman Empire.