A pork-butcher's shop

Meat and the Free Market

Significant political changes in three major global cities fueled experimentation with laissez-faire economics, which had peculiar effects on the meat market.
Scottish singer and actress Lulu listens to a small portable Rhapsody DeLuxe radio

Music Only for a Woman: The Birth of Easy Listening

A 1970s radio format geared towards the "feminine psyche" featured musical rearrangements with softer and gentler styles of the day's hits.
The Kim Sisters with Dean Martin

Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s The Kim Sisters

The diversification of talent on American variety shows obscured the reality of race relations in the United States during the Cold War.
Lee Kwong family photo, ca. 1907. Standing (l.-r.): Aurelia, Percy, Carmen, and Luisa. Seated (l.-r. ): Concepcion, Lai Ngan, Teresa, Frank, Lee Kwong, and Marian.

From Bond Maid to Pioneering Chinese Businesswoman

Raised as a servant girl, Lai Ngan grew up to become a cigar maker, own a boarding house, and run grocery stores in the American Southwest.
Mary and Carl Bach

The Gruesome History of Ohio’s “Fingers in the Jar”

Three of Mary Bach’s fingers, hacked off by her murderous husband in 1881, were displayed in a jar for more than a century in Bowling Green, Ohio.
A couple in a Studebaker in Santa Barbara, CA, 1962 on a television screen

The Rise of the LA Suburb in 1960s TV

The shift from city centers to suburbs was reflected in post-World War II television programming.
The view south from Viking 2, one of two probes sent to investigate the surface of the planet Mars for the first time, September 6, 1976

We Might Have Accidentally Killed the Only Life We Ever Found on Mars Nearly 50 Years Ago

In one experiment, the Viking landers added water to Martian soil samples. That might have been a very bad idea.
Jesus in jail with Instruments of the Passion

Visiting Christ’s Prison Cell

After Christian crusaders captured Jerusalem, the Prison of Christ featured on pilgrims' itineraries. But was Christ actually ever imprisoned there?
Japanese "picture brides" being processed after arriving at Angel Island, California, c. 1910

Japanese American Wives and the Sex Industry

Japanese American immigrant wives in the American West attempted to improve their living conditions through sex work.
Engraved portrait of Empress Matilda of Flanders, wearing a crown and holding a scepter, circa 1100.

Empress Matilda, George R. R. Martin’s Muse

Like the fictional character she inspired, Matilda was at the center of a civil war, fighting her own relatives for control of the royal throne.