The Enlightenment brought the idea that punishments should be certain and mild, rather than harsh with lots of pardons and exceptions.

Following the introduction of the mop top by the Beatles, the battle over how long school boys could wear their hair in the 1960s and 1970s went to the courts again and again.

James Hinds was assassinated for his beliefs, and today is largely forgotten. He stood up for African-American civil rights during the Reconstruction, provoking the KKK's ire.

In eighteenth-century New England, funeral attendees went home with funeral tokens–usually a pair of gloves or a ring that declared their sorrow.

The story of J. Edgar Hoover dressing in women's clothing is part of American myth. But does this story tell us more about Hoover or about the nature of gossip?

The singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson had a spectacular rise and then a stunning fall brought on by the Cold War's pathologizing of dissent.

The U.S. is the only country in the world that sentences people to die in prison for offenses committed while under the age of 18.

German imperialists teamed up with Irish republicans and Indian nationalists during World War I; the resulting conspiracy trial ended in a courtroom assassination.

Researchers found that people with high levels of need were scared away from applying for Medicaid and welfare benefits by stigma.

Journalist, physician, and committed black nationalist Martin Delany took Frederick Douglass to task over, among other things, Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin."