Pat McCarran

The End of Asian Exclusion, the Beginning of Caribbean Exclusion

The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act allowed first-generation Japanese American immigrants to become US citizens while keeping African Caribbean immigrants out.
Young female and her little son planting tree in one of city parks on summer day

Building Community and Urban Tree Canopy

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Black communities and other reformers in New York City recognized the ameliorative social effects of greening urban spaces.
An illustration titled “Protecting The Settlers" by JR Browne for his work "The Indians Of California,” 1864

Genocide in California

The extermination campaigns against the Yuki people, sparked by the California Gold Rush and statehood, weren’t termed genocide until the mid 1970s.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Tuskegee University’s Audio Collections

The archives of the historically Black Tuskegee University recently released recordings from 1957 to 1971, with a number by powerful civil rights leaders.
International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/B. O'Connor (UMD/GWU) & J. Rastinejad & W Fong (Northwestern Univ) Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), J. Miller, M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)

Explaining GRB 221009A, the Greatest Cosmic Explosion Humanity Has Ever Seen

The brightest gamma-ray burst ever observed, GRB 221009A behaved in unexpected ways that might help us understand how they occur.
leaders of Kongo receiving the Portugeuse, ca. pre-1840

How Portuguese Slave Traders Changed Ethiopia and Congo

Portuguese trading of enslaved Africans affected two major African powers in very different ways.
An illustration of meat marbling

Why Eat Like a Caveman?

To people who follow the Paleo plan, it can mean anything from embracing meat-eating as a feminist choice to seeking a balanced life with room for leisure.
English actress Jane Birkin and French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg, at home in Paris.

Jane Birkin’s Famous Love (Sex) Song

How the songs of the 1960s and ’70s captured the sexual liberation of women.
Ali Wallace, 1905

Ali: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Right-Hand Gun

Wallace wouldn't have become a famous naturalist without help from colonial networks and hundreds of locals, including his indefatigable Sarawak servant, Ali.
A cartoon of Guru Maharaj Ji on the cover of the November 1973 issue of The Rag

The Concert That Promised a Thousand Years of Peace

Guru Maharaj Ji, the teenage leader of the Divine Light Mission, was poised to usher in a new era. His huge Houston gathering proved to do anything but.