How Influenza Devastated the Navajo Community in 1918
Like COVID-19, the 1918 influenza pandemic moved swiftly through the Navajo community, but firsthand accounts of the devastation are rare.
How Black Artists Fought Exclusion in Museums
When the Metropolitan Museum of Art excluded artworks from a major exhibition all about Harlem, Black artists protested the erasure.
What Drove Buster Keaton to Try a Civil War Comedy?
“Someone should have told Buster that it is difficult to derive laughter from the sight of men being killed in battle.”
Diorama, qu’est-ce que c’est?
Before his daguerreotype, the French inventor Louis Daguerre unveiled a new kind of “virtual reality” on a British stage.
The Sorry State of Apologies
"Sorry" can be more than a mere word when it has real-world consequences.
Media Literacy & Fake News: A Syllabus
Ten lessons from the past and steps we can take now to educate ourselves and our students about how to be a thoughtful consumer of information.
Fake Stone and the Georgian Ladies Who Made It
Coade stone was all the rage in late eighteenth-century architecture, and a mother-and-daughter team was behind it all.
All You Need Is Live
The very first international TV simulcast was 1967's Our World, which featured performers from around the globe—including the Beatles.
Who Were the Male Models in French History Paintings?
Before the French Revolution, professional models were salaried professionals. That would all change in the nineteenth century.
Recalling City Sounds During a Quarantine
The New York Public Library presented the city with the gift of its own "missing sounds" during the coronavirus crisis.