An illustration of 19th-century lovers

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Lust

The turn from punishing sexual activity outside of marriage toward the idea of personal sexual freedom began in the West between 1600 and 1800.
Dakota pipeline protestors

Celebrating Indigenous Peoples and Cultures

More and more states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples' Day instead of Columbus Day.
A detail from Portrait of Ferry Carondelet with his Secretary by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1510

The Merchants of Venice—In Code

Sixteenth-century Venice conducted its affairs in code, so much so that cryptology was professionalized and regulated by the state.
Liberia and the Centennial exhibition, 1876

Building a New Virginia in Liberia

Black American voluntary migrants to Liberia were eager to embrace their African roots, but their vision for the country was very much an American one.
Woman admiring the parish church in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Global Gentrification

The transnational mobility of lifestyle migrants and digital nomads has led to the globalization of rent gaps and the pricing out of locals in some cities.
Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1872

Did Romans Really Fight Rhinos?

A sports historian explains the truth behind the battle scenes in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.
Image from a poster for safe sex awareness

Reading for LGBTQ+ History Month

October is LGBTQ+ History Month, so the JSTOR Daily editors have rounded up a few of our favorite stories to mark the occasion.
Two poachers with a sack. At their feet their lurcher dogs and the corpses of several hares.

Frederick Gowing, King of Poachers

The cultural construction of poaching meant Gowing’s trespasses were understood differently than other kinds of theft in an industrializing Britain.
Battleship NEW YORK at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard dry dock, Bremerton, Washington, ca. 1914

Postcolonial Pacific: The Story of Philippine Seattle

The growth of Seattle in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is inseparable from the arrival of laborers from the US-colonized Philippines.
Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson’s Speech on the Indian Removal Act: Annotated

In December 1830, two months after the passage of the Indian Removal Act, President Andrew Jackson used his annual Congressional message to celebrate the policy.