Members of the United Kingdom branch of the Gay Liberation Front carry placards during a street protest along Essex Street in London on 12th February 1971.

From Gay Liberation to Marriage Equality

One scholar explains how the LGBT movement became focused on advancing the rights of a narrow set of people at the expense of its once-radical vision.
Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1921 race riots

Institutionalized Racism: A Syllabus

How can we help students understand George Floyd's death in the context of institutionalized racism?
Roman Street Scene by Ettore Forti

Everyone in Pompeii Got Takeout, Too

Archaeologists have found that snack bars called tabernae fed much of the city in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.
A Sea Bishop and a Sea Monk

Martin Luther’s Monsters

Prodigies, or monsters, were opaque and flexible symbols that signaled that God was sending some message.
Walter Rodney and W.P.A members exit the Ministry of Labour & Social Security, Guyana - 1970s

Walter Rodney, Guerrilla Intellectual

Walter Rodney’s radical thought and activism led to his eventual killing by a bomb in Guyana, in 1980.
Bernarr MacFadden foundation, Third Avenue, New York, 1931. People could also buy a five course meal for a nickel and up to 3,000 can be served in a day.

One Parallel for the Coronavirus Crisis? The Great Depression

“The idea that the federal government would be providing emergency relief and emergency work was extraordinary,” one sociologist said. “And people liked it.”
An illustration of Charivari by Jean-Jacques Grandville, 1831

Ye Olde Morality-Enforcement Brigades

The charivari (or shivaree) was a ritual in which people on the lower rungs of a community called out neighbors who violated social and sexual norms.
Vintage image of a baseball game in the late 19th century.

Baseball History and Rural America

Baseball's creation myth is bunk, and historians have shown how important cities were to the game's development. But it was still a rural passion.
Sake Deen Mahomed by T. M. Baynes

Dean Mahomet: Travel Writer, Border Crosser

The author of what is considered the first English-language book by an Indian writer was neither a rebel nor an accommodationist.
indian Mulligatawny soup in a brass bowl

The Soup of British Colonialism

Mulligatawny soup started as a simple South Indian broth but was changed to appeal to British palates.