When All the English Had Tails
Where did the myth that English men (and probably women) were hiding tails beneath their clothing come from? And what was that about eggs?
Remembering Sun Yat Sen Abroad
Museums around the world honor the history of the revolutionary, but as Singapore’s Sun Yat Sen Nanyang Memorial Hall shows, those memories aren’t easy to read.
Taking Slavery West in the 1850s
Before the Civil War, pro-slavery forces in the South—particularly the future president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis—tried to extend their power westward.
Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Annotated
Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language declared Americans free from the tyranny of British institutions and their vocabularies.
Life in the Islands of the Dead
Though part of the mainland county of Cornwall, the Scilly Islands offer visitors an encounter with history and the environment like no other.
Charles Darwin and His Correspondents: A Lifetime of Letters
An epistolary network was critical for Darwin’s work, allowing him to obtain new information while sparking fresh ideas in his correspondents’ minds.
A People’s Bank at the Post Office
The Postal Savings System offered depositors a US government-backed guarantee of security, but it was undone by for-profit private banks.
Culinary Fusion in the Ancient World
People from eastern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, South Asia, and Southeast Asia have been sharing food plants across the Indian Ocean for millennia.
Postcards Revolutionized Pornography
In the late nineteenth century, the postcard became the ideal medium for expanding the audience for pornography, much to the concern of social elites.
Colorful Lights to Cure What Ails You
Between 1920 and the 1960s, tens of thousands of people received treatment with a Spectro-Chrome to address various ailments.