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Black and white headshot of author Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills

Matthew Wills has advanced degrees in library science and film studies and is lapsed in both fields. He has published in Poetry, Huffington Post, and Nature Conservancy Magazine, among other places, and blogs regularly about urban natural history at matthewwills.com.

The Killing of Sister George

Hollywood Goes to Its First Lesbian Bar and Can’t Stop Staring

The Killing of Sister George was the first Hollywood movie to depict a lesbian bar. Director Robert Aldrich was obsessed with its authenticity.
Boxes of tamale pie, tostadas and taco casserole with figurine

Who Invented the “Mexican” Food of the United States?

The debate over what counts as authentic Mexican food may be moot when there are 7,000 Taco Bells around the world.
A British soldier training in 1941

The Bayonet: What’s the Point?

According to one scholar, the military sees training in this obsolete weapon as helpful on the modern battlefield.
Nomadic ethnic Tibetan women stand amongst their Yak herd at a camp on July 27, 2015 on the Tibetan Plateau in Yushu County, Qinghai, China.

Yaks in Tibet

As China tried to expand into Tibet in the late 1930s, it looked to the yak as a way to "modernize" Tibetan culture.
Sophia Thoreau

Sophia Thoreau to the Rescue!

Who made sure Henry David Thoreau's works came out after his death? His sister.
The House of Tomorrow, artist rendering exterior view

Solar Housing Is Actually Kind of Retro!

The domestic fuel scarcity of World War II led to innovation in home heating—especially passive solar technology.
Leonard Woolf

How Leonard Woolf Critiqued Bloomsbury from Within

A literary scholar argues that Leonard Woolf has been unfairly neglected—perhaps because his anti-imperialism implicated his friends.
Benin royal shrine head, between 15th century and 16th century

The Benin Bronzes and the Cultural History of Museums

What an 1897 exhibition at the British Museum can tell us about how African artworks were perceived in an era of imperialism.
Attack and take of the Crête-à-Pierrot (4 - march 24, 1802). Original illustration by Auguste Raffet

Sergei Eisenstein and the Haitian Revolution

Why was the legendary Soviet filmmaker rebuffed in his vision of putting history's most consequential slave revolt on screen?
Photograph: A Russian soldier waves a flag while standing on a balcony overlooking a square, where military trucks gather, during the Battle of Stalingrad, World War II, and the cover of Life and Fate

Source: Getty/Wikimedia Commons

How a Forbidden Russian Epic Finally Got Published

Soviet dissident Vasily Grossman's Life and Fate was "arrested" by the KGB in 1961. Here's how it finally saw the light of day.
A finger pressing a doorbell, circa 1950.

When the Push Button Was New, People Were Freaked

The mundane interface between human and machine caused social anxiety in the late nineteenth century.
U.S.S. Pueblo, 1968

Can Thucydides Teach Us Why We Go to War?

A contemporary scholar uses the ancient Greek historian to explain the 1968 Pueblo Crisis in North Korea.
Lansquenets - mercenary soldiers under emperor Maximilian I, c. 1600. Lithograph, published in 1887.

Chivalric Romance, Meet Gunpowder Reality

The manly knight wouldn't have lasted a day in sixteenth-century combat. So why was he so popular as a literary figure at the time?
Thomas Mann

How Thomas Mann Turned against the German Right

The best-selling author supported the Kaiser during World War I. What made him change his mind about politics later?
Length of Brocaded Silk, Italy, 18th century

Eighteenth-Century Spies in the European Silk Industry

Curious about the advancing wonders of the age, savants traveled abroad to gather trade secrets for their homeland.
Two people walking towards Los Angeles, 1937

How the LAPD Guarded California’s Borders in the 1930s

Working well outside their jurisdiction, the officers patrolled their state's borders against white migrants.
Ernest Hemingway at the Finca Vigia, Cuba 1946

Ernest Hemingway and Gender Fluidity

Despite his reputation for hypermasculinity, the author was fascinated by different forms of gender expression.
An illustration from the Bantam edition of Graham Greene's The Quiet American

When the CIA Was Everywhere—Except on Screen

Hollywood was just fine avoiding all portrayals of the Central Intelligence Agency for years after the agency's founding in 1947.
Cover for A Book of Nonsense by Edward Lear, c. 1875

There Once Was a Poem Called a Limerick

Whose history, they say, isn't quick. It's all such a muddle, it can leave you befuddled, whether you like the clean or the sick.
A mural in Paseo Boricua on Division Street in Chicago

Puerto Rican Domestic Workers and Citizenship in the 1940s

Recruited to work on the US mainland for long hours at less than the prevailing rate, women migrants fought for dignity and recognition.
Pontiac, an Ottawa Indian, confronts Colonel Henry Bouquet who authorised his officers to spread smallpox amongst native Americans by deliberately infecting blankets after peace talks in 1764

How Commonly Was Smallpox Used as a Biological Weapon?

Once introduced into the Americas, smallpox spread everywhere. Is it possible to know how often that was done intentionally to kill people?
Rosie the Riveter

Does It Matter Who the Real Rosie the Riveter Was?

Many women have claimed to be the model behind the iconic poster.
At a self-defence demonstration a woman uses a judo heel and leg turnover against a kicking attacker.

How American Women First Learned Self-Defense

Jiu-jitsu, judo, boxing, and wrestling raised eyebrows. But physical strength and political empowerment went hand in hand.
Big Jim Colosimo by Pauline Boty and Portrait fragmenté by Evelyne Axell

The Women of Pop

In addition to bringing attention to overlooked artists, one scholar argues that art criticism has contributed to their obscurity.
This 1964 poster featured what at that time, was CDC’s national symbol of public health, the “Wellbee”, who here was reminding the public to get a booster vaccination.

How Three Women Led the Fight against Pertussis

As whooping cough killed thousands of kids annually, a trio of public health workers were deeply involved in the production and distribution of a vaccine.