leaders of Kongo receiving the Portugeuse, ca. pre-1840

How Portuguese Slave Traders Changed Ethiopia and Congo

Portuguese trading of enslaved Africans affected two major African powers in very different ways.
Ali Wallace, 1905

Ali: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Right-Hand Gun

Wallace wouldn't have become a famous naturalist without help from colonial networks and hundreds of locals, including his indefatigable Sarawak servant, Ali.
A row of British women sitting under hairdryers in a Paris salon

A Short History of Hairdryers

The beauty parlor became a place of sociability for women in the twentieth century, partly aided by modern technology of hair drying.
An Obeah figure brought to England in 1888, taken from a man arrested in Morant Bay, Jamaica, in 1887. The police had suspected him of being an Obeah-man, and thought his possession of this figure proved it.

Poison and Magic in Caribbean Uprisings

Witchcraft and poisoning were closely connected for both West Africans and the Europeans who enslaved them in the eighteenth-century Caribbean.
Lady Florence Baker

Florence Baker, Unsung Survivor

Narrowly escaping slavery herself, Baker risked her life to repress the Saharan slave trade, sought the source of the Nile, and challenged Victorian social conventions.
View of the Rock of Gibraltar as seen from the Sierra Carbonera Mountains of Cadiz, Spain

Gibraltar: Where Two Worlds Meet, the Monkeys Roam

Home to the genetically unique Barbary macaques, Gibraltar serves up an intriguing mix of European cultures to residents and tourists alike.
Allenby St c. 1930

Electrifying the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Jewish immigrants and British authorities tried to sell electrification as a matter of business while Palestinian Arabs viewed it as a Zionist nation-building project.
Recreation of a Cucuteni-Trypillian house burning

“Burned House” Mystery: Why Did This Ancient Culture Torch Its Own Homes Every 60 Years?

The arsons were no accident, archaeological evidence suggests.
A pork-butcher's shop

Meat and the Free Market

Significant political changes in three major global cities fueled experimentation with laissez-faire economics, which had peculiar effects on the meat market.
Elizabeth Kapuʻuwailani Lindsey with her mentor, navigator-priest Pius "Mau" Piailug. Photo by Nick Kato

Pius “Mau” Piailug: Master Navigator of Micronesia

Mau used traditional skills to guide a canoe from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti, sharing his navigational knowledge with others to keep the wayfinding traditions alive.