The Enlightenment brought the idea that punishments should be certain and mild, rather than harsh with lots of pardons and exceptions.

The Romans certainly have a reputation for using poisons, but what do we really know about this form of assassination in the classical era?

The door to spring is guarded by fools, but that's ok, because they're not all that serious. And everybody knows the password: April Fools!

King Charles VI of France was the most exalted representative of a rash of "Glass Men," who appeared throughout Europe between the 15th and 17th centuries.

President Xi Jinping of China recently managed to abolish term limits. What compels some leaders to discard the rules of the very systems that led them to power?

A generation before Rosa Parks, a young Alaska Native woman was arrested for sitting in the "whites only" section of a Nome, Alaska movie theater.

It took three more decades of Soviet rule before the archives dealing with Stalin and his times could be explored. And then the doors were shut again.

Gerrymandering is the process by which districts for the House of Representatives are drawn so that one party has a distinct election advantage.

Scholars Carol K. Coburn and Martha Smith write that nuns were an important part of westward expansion—and in Colorado, nuns quickly learned how to use their gender to their advantage.

In The Miscellany of Iskandar Sultan, sections of text stack on top of one another, interlaced like fretwork. Bursts of flowers and tangles of vines fill the empty spaces.