Where does class-based hypocrisy over substance use come from? Look to the seventeenth century.

In Theodor de Bry’s illustrations for Thomas Harriot’s Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, the Algonquin are made to look like the Irish. Surprise.

Lord Elgin went beyond his original mandate, amassing a vast store of treasures, one scholar notes.

How much violence do we accept in our entertainment? 19th-century Punch and Judy shows were misogynistic, murderous, and definitely not for children.

The cultural meaning of Guy Fawkes’ conspiracy to blow up the House of Lords has shifted, from countercultural symbol to HBO drama.

In early nineteenth-century England, forging currency was considered to be such a subversive threat that it was punished with the death penalty.

Many abolitionists seeking to end slavery in the British West Indies were concerned less with human rights, more with the preponderance of what they saw as "interracial sex."

It took three more decades of Soviet rule before the archives dealing with Stalin and his times could be explored. And then the doors were shut again.

On July 2, 1881, less than a year after President James Garfield was elected the 20th president of the United States, he was shot by Charles Guiteau.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, won and lost fortunes, giving into a compulsion that pitted her against some of society’s most notorious ne’er-do-wells.