Buffalo Bill's wild West and congress of rough riders of the world

The Triumphalism of American Wild West Shows

From the 1880s to the 1930s, hundreds of Wild West shows encouraged white audiences to view Native American culture as a rapidly vanishing curiosity.
Elizabeth Kapuʻuwailani Lindsey with her mentor, navigator-priest Pius "Mau" Piailug. Photo by Nick Kato

Pius “Mau” Piailug: Master Navigator of Micronesia

Mau used traditional skills to guide a canoe from Hawaiʻi to Tahiti, sharing his navigational knowledge with others to keep the wayfinding traditions alive.
Cape Town, South Africa

Cape Town, South Africa

Although the apartheid era continues to cast its shadow on Cape Town, many of its neighborhoods have been enjoying a renaissance as tourist destinations.
Gourna Mosque

Hassan Fathy and New Gourna

Fathy rejected European ideas of modernism, arguing that Egypt could draw on its own regional histories to develop a national aesthetic.
soldier using tablet computer hands closeup pnk background pixelated neural network concept

As Militaries Adopt AI, Hype Becomes a Weapon

Few things provoke quite the same amount of anxiety as the effect AI could have on warfare.
Ice cutters

On the Rocks

Ice harvesters once made a living from frozen lakes and ponds, and the international ice industry was a booming business. Then refrigeration came along.
Preparatory sketches for a pittura infamante or shame painting by Andrea del Sarto

Punitive Portraits of the Renaissance

The Italian legal tradition called for the public display of a humiliating—but recognizable—portrait of the disgraced person.
An illustration from Winsor McCay's comic strip consisting of 5 panels, featuring a large moon and a little boy.

The Cutting-Edge Cartoons of Winsor McCay

A prolific, meticulous artist, McCay created characters and storyscapes that inspired generations of cartoonists and animators.
Tenzing Norgay

Tenzing Norgay: The Mountaineer Who Refused to be Categorized

By remaining vague about his own biography, Norgay called into question the idea of nationhood and made a deafening point about actions speaking louder than words.
Bright and colorful land- and seasape of St Kitts and Nevis.

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Sandy beaches and luxury hotels seem to define this Caribbean nation, but it’s the music and architecture that truly speak to its complicated history.