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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.

A Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG women fighters pose as they stand near a check point in the outskirts of the destroyed Syrian town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab, Syria. June 20, 2015.

Women Warriors Make Great Propaganda

The presence of female fighters gives legitimacy to armed rebellions and increases the chances of support from international NGOS and other external actors.
A painting of Hong Tianguifu being captured

Taiping: China’s Nineteenth-Century Civil War

Partially coinciding with the American Civil War, the Taiping “Rebellion” in China was one of the most destructive conflicts in history.
Andrea Prader, c. 1977

Defining and Redefining Intersex

The transatlantic circulation of ideas between Baltimore and Zurich consolidated and standardized treatments of intersex infants in the 1950s.
Louise de Kéroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth by Pierre Mignard I

Painting Race

The construction and expression of race by skin color literally became visible in Western art in the eighteenth century.
Freedom, A Journal of Anarchist Socialism, Volume 1, Issue 1, October 1886

Printing Anarchy

The stock figure of the “anarchist” is a bomb-thrower or assassin, but political scientist Kathy E. Ferguson argues it should be a printer.
A cartoon from the cover of Puck, 1894

Imperial Humo(u)r

Imperialism, experienced as both royal subject and new colonizer, has been a key element in the development, continuity, and disruption of American humor.
Marston Matting in Sant'Angelo in Formis, Italy

Archaeology of the October Cuban Crisis

A contemporary archeology project studying the remains of the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 reveals the human face—literally—of the conflict.
President Lyndon B. Johnson addresses the Nation, announcing a bombing halt in Vietnam and his intention not to run for re-election, 1968

All The Way With LBJ?

In March 1968, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of the Democratic Party. That wasn’t the whole truth.
Advertisement for Carrier Room Air Conditioning, circa 1947.

Staying Cool: Helpful Hints From History

Take a look back at how others have survived—and thought about—the high heat of summer.
Peer review illustration

The History of Peer Review Is More Interesting Than You Think

The term “peer review” was coined in the 1970s, but the referee principle is usually assumed to be as old as the scientific enterprise itself. (It isn’t.)
Recruiting poster for the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps

Battery X: A Secret Test of Women at War during WWII

Although their contributions have been largely forgotten, women played an active role in Washington DC’s air defense system during World War II.
A bag of freshly picked potatoes in the field.

Potato Power!

How the potato changed the course of world history…twice.
Human hand holding an asterisk

History’s Footnotes

The addition of footnotes to texts by historians began long before their supposed inventor, Leopold von Ranke, started using them (poorly, as it turns out).
A map outlining the Proclamation of October 7, 1763, overlaid with a portrait of King George III.

Real Estate and the Revolution

When George III issued a proclamation forbidding settlement west of a line running through the Appalachian Mountains, colonists decided they’d had enough.
From Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone, which Matilda Tone edited and published, though credit was attributed to her son

Matilda Tone, Historian of Irish Republicanism

Through the work and writing of Matilda Tone, her late husband, Theobold Wolfe Tone, was constructed as the hero of Irish republicanism.
A briefcase with a pirate flag symbol

Modern Piracy: Arbitration as Plunder

In a world of globalized trade, an industry of piratical lawyers has arisen to help transnational corporations seize the assets of supposedly sovereign states.
President Nixon with his edited transcripts of the White House Tapes subpoenaed by the Special Prosecutor, during his speech to the Nation on Watergate

Power over Presidential Records

By law, all communications seen and/or touched by a United States president are supposed to be preserved. Reality—and executive privilege—is a lot messier.
Little island full of money

Islands in the Cash Stream 

Tiny island states, usually former British colonies, have been re-colonized by global finance and now depend on “archipelago capitalism” for survival.
Radiation Effects Research Foundation Hiroshima

Biobanking the Victims of Nuclear War

Nearly 2 million biological samples from people affected by radiation from World War II nuclear bombings are stored in facilities in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Fanny and Stella, 1869

Trans-lating the Story of Fanny and Stella

The Victorian-era trial of Fanny and Stella has been variously interpreted over the years. But what if it was a trans narrative all along?
Onlookers gaze upon and photograph the Northern Lights at Chanticleer Point Lookout on the Columbia River Gorge in the early morning hours of May 11, 2024 in Latourell, Oregon

Aurorae and the Green of the Night Sky

On the historical hunt for the origin of the enigmatic green line in the spectrum of the aurora borealis.
Stirring sunken vats in the interior of a soap factory, 1771

A Potash Primer

Ash from burnt wood, weeds, bracken, and kelp helped fuel the Industrial Revolution.
Justice John Marshall Harlan

The Great Dissenter’s Complications

Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan I argued the US Constitution was color-blind. He also believed it stood in defense of white supremacy.
Interior of the Musée des Monuments Français, between 1795 and 1816

Saving Art from the Revolution, for the Revolution

Alexandre Lenoir’s Musée des monuments français, founded to protect French artifacts from the revolutionary mobs, was one of the first popular museums of Europe.
Arabs and Jews marching side by side as a Palestinian army for service with the British army as an Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps.

Palestinians against Fascism

Thousands of Palestinian Arabs volunteered to fight against Germany and Italy during World War II, serving alongside Jewish volunteers from Mandate Palestine.