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JSTOR Daily published a whopping 834 stories in 2017—that’s a lot for our small staff. Here are the greatest hits: our personal favorites and yours. As always, each of these stories includes free, open links to relevant scholarship on JSTOR. Happy New Year!

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Jellyfish bloom

The Global Jellyfish Crisis in Perspective

Are the increasing jellyfish blooms in our oceans the result of global temperature changes?
women pirates

Women Were Pirates, Too

Maybe you've never heard of Anne Bonny and Mary Read, but they were real-life women pirates who cross-dressed to get on ships.
Lady Deborah Moody

Video: Lady Deborah Moody and the Founding of Gravesend, Brooklyn

A short video describing the colonial village of Gravesend, Brooklyn, founded by Lady Deborah Moody in 1643, only to somewhat mysteriously disappear.
A dog on trial

When Societies Put Animals on Trial

Animal trials were of two kinds: (1) secular suits against individual creatures; and (2) ecclesiastic cases against groups of vermin.
A Spongey Lower Manhattan

How to Build a City That Doesn’t Flood? Turn it Into a Sponge City

Cities encourage potentially devastating floods by laying down asphalt and pavement. Could this be avoided by making them "spongier" and more absorbent?
Seven Against Thebes

“Thoughts and Prayers” in Greek Tragedy

With national tragedies now as frequent and predictable as sunrises, no phrase has lost consolatory power more swiftly than “thoughts and prayers.”
1920s-era Remington Portable typewriter

The QWERTY Truth

How did the QWERTY keyboard became the gold standard? The answer is probably not what you'd think. Welcome to the economic concept of "path dependence."
Christ healing the paralytic, by Anthony van Dyck (c. 1619)

Will We Always Have the Poor Among Us?

To end poverty, public policy must provide much more than economic resources
Smoke billowing over Tulsa, Oklahoma during 1921 race riots

The Devastation of Black Wall Street

Tulsa, Oklahoma. 1921. A wave of racial violence destroys an affluent African-American community, seen as a threat to white-dominated American capitalism.
Book of Curiosities

Ancient Maps Are Mirrors for the Ancient Psyche

The Book of Curiosities of the Sciences, and Marvels for the Eyes, an eleventh-century Arabic geography, is still a wonder.
Mrs Miss Ms

From the Mixed-Up History of Mrs., Miss, and Ms.

Language can reveal power dynamics, as in the terms of address, or honorifics, are used to refer to a woman's social status: Mrs., Miss, and Ms.
Ayuba Suleiman Diallo

The Lost History of Early Muslim Americans

 Islam in America is clearly nothing new.
speech bubbles me too

Finding the Words We Need to Talk About Sexual Assault and Harassment

"Me too." As the conversation around sexual assault has spread, it's become clear that not everybody is prepared to talk about such a difficult issue.
charlottesville syllabus: history of hate in america

Charlottesville Syllabus: Readings on the History of Hate in America

The history of racism and ethnic hate in America is long and deep. What are the cultural, economic, and political currents that led us here?

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