Independent voters

Who Are the Independent Voters?

The voting patterns of actual independents have long been a topic of study. Who are they, and how do they actually vote?
Socialists in Union Square, N.Y.C. May 1, 1912

How Labor Lost May Day

At the turn of the century, May 1 was a time for radical labor protests. During WWI, May Day was replaced by the more nationalistic Labor Day.
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference Division, The New York Public Library. "Sugar cane plantation; [Jamaica.]" New York Public Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 27, 2016. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-94a7-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Sugar Has Always Been Bad

Sugar long had a bad reputation because of its connection to slavery in the New World.
Louisiana Purchase

The Politics of the Louisiana Purchase

In a treaty signed in Paris on April 30, France swapped 828,000 square miles of North America to the U.S. for $15 million.
Hulk Hogan (left) and Nick Denton (right)

How Hulk Hogan v. Gawker May Change the Face of Journalism

The recent Gawker vs. Hogan spat is the latest in the long history of journalism, free speech, gossip, and the law.
Woodpulp pile

Pulp Nonfiction: The Unlikely Origin of American Mass Media

How wood pulp paper created the American mass media.
Headline reading, "New Popular Idol Rises in Bavaria: Hitler Credited With Extraordinary Powers of Swaying Crowds to His Will"

How Hitler Played the American Press

Did the AP and other news organizations get tricked into sympathetic coverage of Hitler?
1871 Life insurance policy

Putting a Price on a Life

If you have a life insurance policy, that means your insurance company pays your beneficiaries when you die, ...
Mussolini and the Quadrumviri during the March on Rome in 1922: from left to right: Michele Bianchi, Emilio De Bono, Italo Balbo and Cesare Maria De Vecchi

Authoritarianism’s Hidden Root Cause

The greater the inequality of a society, the greater the risk of authoritarianism.
Leonardo da Vinci botanical study, circa 1490

Leonardo Da Vinci, Artist/Scientist

Leonardo was the first scientific illustrator.