The US Propaganda Machine of World War I
As the United States prepared to enter World War I, the government created the first modern state propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information.
The Three Cs of Bucharest
Three big Cs dominate the history of Romania and its capital city, Bucharest. You may know communism and Ceaușescu, but what about Cuza?
The Unusual, Unexpected Erechtheion
The Parthenon embodies the ideals of perfection Classical Greeks sought from architecture. The neighboring Erechtheion offers something else.
Burke and Hare…and Knox
Burke and Hare infamously killed people to meet the demand for bodies in Edinburgh’s anatomy schools in 1828. But who remembers the man for whom they worked?
What Are Colonies For? France and Algeria, 1848
Algeria was a safety valve for the Second Republic: a place to funnel the militant working class to subdue them as colonists and farmers.
The Long Shadow of Adelbert von Chamisso
An exiled French aristocrat who wrote in German and explored California in the name of Russia, von Chassimo inspired Marx, Offenbach, and even Wilde.
Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation
"Except as punishment for a crime," reads the constitutional exception to abolition. In prison plantations across the United States, slavery thrives.
Indigenous Kings in Londontown
In 1710, Queen Anne of England feted four Native American dignitaries—would-be political allies. Their presence at a performance of Macbeth caused a stir.
What Skulls Told Us
The pseudoscience phrenology swept the popular imagination, and its practitioners made a mint preying on prejudices, gullibility, and misinformation.