Juke in the Box
The jukebox turned listening to music into a performative act. With a single coin, listeners could share their musical taste with everyone in the place.
Lai Teck, International Man of Mystery
A Vietnamese double agent who infiltrated and led the Communist Party of Malaya in the 1930s, Lai Teck also spied for the British and the Japanese.
Buddhist Pacifists at War
In the early centuries of Vajrayāna Buddhism in India, practitioners worked to reconcile the religion’s teaching of nonviolence with the realities of warfare.
Did Inbreeding Cause the Woolly Mammoth’s Extinction?
Research suggests it was more sudden than that.
The Barrier-Breaking Ozark Club of Great Falls, Montana
The Black-owned club became a Great Falls hotspot, welcoming all to a music-filled social venue for almost thirty years.
The Stickiness of Teflon
From excitement about its potential to revelations of its possible toxicity, Teflon has taken a wild ride through American science, manufacturing, and marketing.
The “Mexican-Hindus” of Rural California
Anti-Asian immigration restrictions led male Punjabi farm workers in California to marry Mexican and Mexican American women, creating new cultural bonds.
The French Historian Who Invented the Olympics
Pierre de Coubertin harnessed an enduring fascination with ancient Greece to create a new institution that blended national pride with global unity.
History’s Footnotes
The addition of footnotes to texts by historians began long before their supposed inventor, Leopold von Ranke, started using them (poorly, as it turns out).