“What to the Slave is The Fourth of July?”: Annotated
On July 5, 1852, Frederick Douglass gave a Fourth of July speech that became his most famous public oration.
Hold the Line
As telephony developed, so did a workforce of switchboard operators—all women—who were ultimately rendered obsolete by technological progress.
De-Bunking the Barbarians
The idea of barbarian invasions comes from the nineteenth century, when they were constructed as the decisive event that wrenched the West into modernity.
Annexation Nation
Since 1823, when the Monroe Doctrine was first introduced to the world, the US has regarded Cuba as key to its designs for Latin America.
The Mystery of Crime-Scene Dust
In the late nineteenth century, forensic investigators began using new technologies to study minute details—such as the arrangement and makeup of dust.
From Handcuffs to Rainbows: Queer in the Military
The US military has done an about face on LGBTQ+ rights in just over a decade.
The Habshi Dynasty of India
Amongst the hundreds of minorities within the Subcontinent, Black Indians of African origin stand out.
Declaration of Conscience: Annotated
In June 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith criticized Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist campaigns. She was the first of his colleagues to challenge his Red Scare rhetoric.
Windrush Day
There were British African Caribbean immigrants to the UK well before June 22, 1948, but it was the arrival of Empire Windrush that got the media's attention.
Coming Out Against The Vietnam War
The war radicalized many draft-age men, gay as well as straight. They helped normalize certain expressions of homosexuality while trying to avoid the draft.