The Reindeer Games
In 1907, the U.S. Reindeer Service was organized as part of an effort to domesticate the animals...and Inupiat Eskimos.
Lawrence Lessig: How to Repair Our Democracy
Law professor and one-time presidential hopeful Lawrence Lessig on campaign finance, gerrymandering, and the electoral college.
![Travels through Virginia. [From Theodor de Bry's 'America', Vol. I, 1590, after a drawing of John White].](https://daily.jstor.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/the_construction_of_america_in_the_eyes_of_the_english_1050x700-600x400.jpg)
The Construction of America, in the Eyes of the English
In Theodor de Bry’s illustrations for Thomas Harriot’s Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, the Algonquin are made to look like the Irish. Surprise.
This Isn’t the First Baby Bust
And it's unlikely to be the last. One scholar looks at the factors that contributed to the increase in childlessness at the turn of the twentieth century.
The Highest Flood in Italy This Century
Recent flooding in Venice has revived memories of a record-setting 1966 flood, which sparked an international rescue program for art and architecture.
Why the Pilgrims Were Actually Able to Survive
If you were reading Bradford's version of events, you might think that the survival of the Pilgrims' settlements was often in danger.
America, Where the Dogs Don’t Bark and the Birds Don’t Sing
The Comte de Buffon's thirty-six volume Natural History claimed that America was a land of degeneracy. That enraged Thomas Jefferson.
Talk about This, Not That
Looking to avoid politics at the holiday dinner table? Food trivia, ground-up mummy pigment, and snake jaws ought to do the trick.
Vegetarian Thanksgiving Dates Back to the 1900s
Tofu Turkey was created in 1990, but some Americans celebrated Thanksgiving with veggie dishes over a century ago.
When and Where Did Abraham Lincoln Write the Gettysburg Address?
Theories abound. Historian William H. Lambert considers the origin of the address and the mythology surrounding its composition.