Illustration of two house sparrows

Words for Birds

...evidence of existence. Puffins Seen Using Tools, Breaking Dumb-Puffin Stereotypes Liz Tracey February 2, 2020 Reputed to be a less intelligent bird species, puffins have been observed scratching themselves with...
A street dog in Varanasi city, India

Our Most Popular Stories of 2022

...have wondered if it was backed by scientific research. Beware the Ides of March. (But Why?) Liz Tracey March 15, 2022 Everybody remembers that the Ides of March was the...
Close-up Vintage Wooden Hourglass on Wooden Background, Sand running through the bulbs for measuring the passing time

Editors’ Picks of 2022

...about this clavier, and what’s a “clavier,” anyway? Harvey Milk’s Gay Freedom Day Speech: Annotated Liz Tracey June 13, 2022 Five months before his assassination in 1978, Harvey Milk called...
A Hundred Years Peace: The Signature of the Treaty of Ghent (Belgium), 1814

The Treaty of Ghent: Annotated

On December 24, 1814, representatives of the United States and the British Empire met to sign the Treaty of Ghent that, once ratified, would end another war between them. The...
The seven dwarves find Snow White asleep in their bedroom, from the fairy tale by the brothers Grimm, c. 1812

Children’s Fairy Tales and Feminine Beauty

...professor Liz Grauerholz looked into the prevalence of what they call “the feminine beauty ideal” in fairy tales. “Children’s fairy tales, which emphasize such things as women’s passivity and beauty,...
Mothers' Crusade for Victory over Communism

Moral Panics: A Syllabus

...(The Briggs Initiative): Annotated Liz Tracey October 28, 2022 Proposition 6, better known as the Briggs Initiative, was the first attempt to restrict the rights of lesbian and gay Americans...
Anita Bryant is hit in the face with a pie during a press conference on October 14, 1977

Proposition 6 (The Briggs Initiative): Annotated

The history of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States can be seen as cyclical, as “just a little bit of History repeating.” Progress is made, then those who oppose this...
Richard Nixon photoshopped to be wearing a "Pardon Me! Gerald..." button.

The Pardon of President Nixon: Annotated

It is difficult to summarize the singular period of history between the June 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters and the August 1974 resignation of President Richard Nixon. Briefly,...
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 while Martin Luther King and others look on

The Voting Rights Act 1965: Annotated

On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, legislation that sought to remove the discriminatory obstacles placed by states and localities to prevent Black residents...
Comic books and collectibles are seen during WonderCon 2018 at Anaheim Convention Center on March 23, 2018 in Anaheim, California.

Teaching Comics: A Syllabus

...the Bechdel test, second-wave feminists looked at sexist portrayals in Saturday Morning cartoons There’s a Mascot for That? Cute COVID-19 Education Liz Tracey April 6, 2020 How to get people...