Choctaw woman

How 19th Century Women Were Taught to Think About Native Americans

In nineteenth-century American women's magazines, Native American women were depicted as attractive, desirable, and pious.
Old movie theater

Weirdly Enough, Movies about TV Prepared America for TV

Ironically, it was movies that helped accustom American viewers to television in the first place, writes Richard Koszarski.
Blue Black gallery view

Glenn Ligon’s “Blue Black” Exhibits the History of Race in America

Artist Glenn Ligon grounds his work in American history, addressing the inextricable link between history of slavery and the black experience in the U.S.
Harpsichord

Why We Will Never Hear What Mozart Heard

Modern pianos are the product of a 600-year evolution—from Hermann Poll's 1397 clavicembalum, to clavichords, harpsichords, and the modern grand piano.
Displaced Rohingya people

How Buddhism Is Being Used to Justify Violence in Myanmar

What's behind the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar in which the minority Rohingya people are being violently driven out of the country?
Orca Juvenile

Starving Killer Whales Are Losing Most of Their Babies

The southern resident killer whales of the northeast Pacific are in trouble. As habitats and food dwindle, they increasingly miscarry and lose their babies.
black power salute olympics

The Uneasy History of Integrated Sports in America

The integration of collegiate and professional sports parallels the civil rights movement, but in important ways it was a whole different track.
Bangalore street

Are There Other Silicon Valleys?

The phrase "Silicon Valley" conjures images of a crowded mini-metropolis in California, and a barrage of familiar Western brands. That's about to change.
San Juan Puerto Rico

What the US Owes Puerto Rico

As historian Déborah Berman Santana writes, the US is very much responsible for molding Puerto Rico’s economy to begin with.
Lourdes Grobet

Mexico’s Radical Women Artists

Art by Mexican "Radical Women" artists capture the turbulent times of the feminist movement in Mexico in the 1970s and still ring true today.