Examining the 18th-century social contract of Captain Bartholomew Roberts and his men shows just how organized and codified pirate societies could be.

The feared gang MS-13 was born out of conditions resulting from U.S. policies in El Salvador in the early 1980s.

Many abolitionists seeking to end slavery in the British West Indies were concerned less with human rights, more with the preponderance of what they saw as "interracial sex."

The Book of Stones, a central alchemical text, contained formulae with the power to create living tissue from ordinary matter, supposedly.

Pushing New Deal legislation, FDR proposed that extra justices should be added to the Supreme Court, one for every sitting justice over the age of seventy.

Black intellectuals in the U.S.—from W. E. B. Du Bois to Marcus Garvey—had strong and divergent opinions on Japanese Empire.

During WWI, artist and British naval officer Norman Wilkinson came up with an idea so crazy it just may have worked: Dazzle Camouflage.

Presidents have always chosen Supreme Court nominees who agree with their political beliefs. But they've gotten savvier about the selection process.

Some political philosophers suggest that arguments about civility are a distraction from the real political issues.

The things travelers bring home reflect their worldviews. In 19th c. Niagara Falls, souvenirs revealed problematic stereotypes about Native Americans.