A group of women sit in the waiting room of the American Birth Control League Clinic, New York, 1921

Pro-Sex Feminists of the 1920s

In the early decades of the twentieth century, political and social activists saw separating sex from marriage and reproduction as an issue of freedom.
Aerial view of Barringer crater in Arizona

The Eight Best Hidden Impact Craters on Earth

Many impact craters on Earth have been erased thanks to wind, water, and plate tectonics. But scientists have clever ways to find them.
Boy genius Robert Strom is interviewed by host Hal March from the television series 'The $64,000 Question', 1955.

The Invention of the Gifted Child

The National Defense Education Act of 1958 meshed with white anxiety about the desegregation of schools.
Thomas Jefferson

Making Malt Liquor at Monticello

Thomas Jefferson thought whiskey was harmful to the country. Together with enslaved brewer Peter Hemings, he experimented with making less potent drinks.
A row of British women sitting under hairdryers in a Paris salon

A Short History of Hairdryers

The beauty parlor became a place of sociability for women in the twentieth century, partly aided by modern technology of hair drying.
Cotton plantation

Understanding Capitalism Through Cotton

Looking at the development of cotton as a global commodity, explains historian Sven Beckert, helps us understand how capitalism emerged.
William Maclure

A Boatload of Knowledge for New Harmony

Leaders of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences voyaged down the Ohio River in 1825–1826, taking academic education on a journey in search of utopia.
Mathilde “Missy” de Morny

The Cross-Dressing Superstar of the Belle Époque

Mathilde de Morny's commitment to a masculine aesthetic and a non-traditional lifestyle in nineteenth-century France challenged the boundaries of gender identity.