Indian migrant workers walk on a bridge after they were stopped by police while returning to their native places, as the country relaxed its lockdown restriction on May 14, 2020 in New Delhi, India

India’s Coronavirus Migration Crisis

Widespread market failure and unemployment triggered by the coronavirus pandemic have set off a crisis of domestic migration in India.
Nikolai Vavilov in prison

The Weed Scientist Who Brought Down the Wrath of Stalin

Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov's hypothesis on the evolution of rye is now accepted. But in the 1930s, his research got him arrested.
Roman Street Scene by Ettore Forti

Everyone in Pompeii Got Takeout, Too

Archaeologists have found that snack bars called tabernae fed much of the city in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius.
Sake Deen Mahomed by T. M. Baynes

Dean Mahomet: Travel Writer, Border Crosser

The author of what is considered the first English-language book by an Indian writer was neither a rebel nor an accommodationist.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin attend an inauguration ceremony for Putin May 7, 2000 in the Kremlin in Moscow.

Was Russia Destined to Be an Autocracy?

The most important factors that steered Russia away from democracy, says one scholar, weren't inevitable.
Plague column in Vienna, Austria

How to Memorialize a Plague

Vienna's baroque Plague Column, completed in 1693, gave thanks for the survival of a city.
Panel from the Florentine Cortex depicting smallpox outbreaks in the Americas during the 16th century

European Colonization and Epidemics Among Native Peoples

What you learned about the diseases that decimated Native communities is probably wrong.
Abyssinian officers

The Defense of Ethiopia from Fascism

For black activists in the 1930s, defending Ethiopia from Mussolini’s invasion created unprecedented unity.
La Malaria by Auguste Hebert

Cracking the Malaria Mystery—from Marshes to Mosquirix

It took science centuries to understand malaria. Now we’re waiting to see how the 2019 vaccine pilot works.
A group of Royal Irish Constabulary officers

Britain’s World Police in Mandate Palestine

As colonized peoples challenged the imperial powers after World War I, British veterans were tapped to become a ruthless police force.