How a Paris Meet Changed Women’s Track and Field
In the early twentieth century, women were discouraged from competing in track and field. The First International Track Meet for Women helped change that.
The First Black American to Reach the North Pole
Matthew Henson partnered with Robert Peary on seven Arctic adventures, but their final success brought an end to a longstanding collaboration.
Stonehenge Before the Druids (Long, Long, Before The Druids)
The clash of academic archaeology and what might be called folk archaeology comes into stark focus at Stonehenge.
Cape Verde’s Dilemma(s)
While increased tourism may be a boon to the economy, increasing numbers of visitors may harm the environmental wonders that draw outsiders to the islands.
Parents’ Rights, Sex, and Race in 1970s Florida
Save Our Children is remembered as an effort to keep gay people out of public life. But it was also rooted in the movement against school integration.
Should Readers Trust “Inaccuracy” in Memoirs about Genocide?
To what extent do errors undermine life writing? The question is an urgent one when that writing is testimony to the genocidal actions of the Khmer Rouge.
Urban Planning, Then and Now
Humans have been designing cities for millennia. California Forever is just the newest entry in a long list of planned communities around the world.
Peshtigo: The Nation’s Deadliest Fire
On the same night as Chicago’s Great Fire of 1871, some 2,400 square miles of Wisconsin and Michigan burned in a firestorm that took more than 1,000 lives.
The End of Asian Exclusion, the Beginning of Caribbean Exclusion
The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act allowed first-generation Japanese American immigrants to become US citizens while keeping African Caribbean immigrants out.
Building Community and Urban Tree Canopy
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Black communities and other reformers in New York City recognized the ameliorative social effects of greening urban spaces.