The Origins of the Mug Shot
US police departments began taking photographs of people they arrested in the 1850s.
Can Thucydides Teach Us Why We Go to War?
A contemporary scholar uses the ancient Greek historian to explain the 1968 Pueblo Crisis in North Korea.
The Myth of Manifest Destiny
Not everyone in the nineteenth century was on board with expanding the territory of the US from coast to coast.
Policing Intersex Americans’ Sex and Gender
Assigning one sex to people with ambiguous genitalia has a long history in medicine and law.
Chivalric Romance, Meet Gunpowder Reality
The manly knight wouldn't have lasted a day in sixteenth-century combat. So why was he so popular as a literary figure at the time?
The Dogs of North America
Dogs were prolific hunters and warm companions for northeastern Native peoples like the Mi'kmaq.
The Newsletter Boom, 300 Years before Substack
Some journalists are turning to newsletters to get their work out. But they're not hand-copying them onto folded paper, like people did in the 1600s.
How to Dress for Dystopia
Some nineteenth-century novelists predicted horrible futures, with perfectly horrible clothing to match.
How Thomas Mann Turned against the German Right
The best-selling author supported the Kaiser during World War I. What made him change his mind about politics later?
Eighteenth-Century Spies in the European Silk Industry
Curious about the advancing wonders of the age, savants traveled abroad to gather trade secrets for their homeland.