An illustration of a UFO

Far Out: Why Don’t We Believe in UFOs?

Is it scientific impossibility or simply human ego that stops us from entertaining the idea of extraterrestrial visitation?
Pedestrian Charles Rowell, 1879

The Popularity and Politics of Pedestrianism

The sport of competitive walking touched on social concerns such as debt and poverty, fitness and fame, but it also found support in the temperance movement.
American politician Joseph McCarthy (1908 ? 1957), Republican senator from Wisconsin, testifies against the US Army during the Army-McCarthy hearings, Washington, DC, June 9, 1954. McCarthy stands before a map which charts Communist activity in the United States.

Joseph McCarthy in Wheeling, West Virginia: Annotated

Senator Joseph McCarthy built his reputation on fear-mongering, smear campaigns, and falsehoods about government employees and their associates.
From the picture album "Hakone 7 yu zue" by Hiroshige, 1852

Reinventing Vacation in Japan

In the late nineteenth century, Japan adopted Western-style vacation, but not everyone was on board with the new leisure practices.
The cover of Sonyŏn kwahak from September, 1965

Popular Science—but Make It North Korean

In the 1950s, science in North Korea was presented in a way that fired children’s imaginations and encouraged youth to develop ideas that served the state.

Graffiti Limbo

A University of Virginia professor enlisted students to document the messages—profane, hopeful, despairing—left on library carrels by previous generations.
Monaco

Monaco, a Mediterranean Principality Shaped by the Middle Ages

From Grimaldi piracy in the Medieval era to the high-stakes gambling tables of the present, Monaco celebrates its ties to science, religion, and royalty.
Publicity photo on the set of the CBS anthology television series Studio One for a presentation of George Orwell's 1984

Turning Orwell into Propaganda

Many read the novels of George Orwell as pro-capitalist/anti-socialist propaganda, but his work has become a resource for all kinds of political arguments.
Gunsmith and ballistics expert Robert Churchill using a microscope to help compile a ballistic report for Scotland Yard in the case of the murder of Essex police officer PC George Gutteridge, 1927

Performing Forensics: Doctors Becoming Expert Witnesses

Doctors in skeptical Scotland had to persuade the courts to listen to them, in part because of the historical animosity between the professions of law and medicine.
Government official meeting Hide Hyodo Shimizu's class at New Denver Internment Camp school, New Denver, British Columbia

Disinheritance: The Internment of Japanese Canadians

Glenn McPherson, the bureaucrat largely responsible for selling off the property of interned Japanese Canadians during World War II, was also a secret agent.