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Samuel Pepys, by John Hayls, 1666.
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Peeping on Pepys

For more than two decades, a community of committed internet users has been chewing over the famous Londoner’s diary.
by Caroline Wazer via HNN on June 11, 2024
An illustration of a solar eclipse next to a portrait of James Fenimore Cooper.

Solar Eclipses in American History

How the spectacle of the 1806 solar eclipse impacted the national consciousness.
by Matthew Smith via Origins on March 14, 2024
The Serpent Mound in Ohio

The Story of Ohio's Ancient Native Complex and its Journey for Recognition as a World Heritage Site

An Indigenous sacred site, Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks has served as a military barracks, a fairground and, more recently, a golf course.
by Stephen Warren via The Conversation on September 25, 2023
Venable Mound, Morehouse Parish, Louisiana, built ca. 700–1200 CE.

Monuments Upon the Tumultuous Earth

For thousands of years, Indigenous societies were building hundred-foot pyramids along the Mississippi River.
by Boyce Upholt via Emergence Magazine on March 23, 2023
Earthen mounds at Louisiana State University.

Oldest Human-made Structure in the Americas Is Older Than the Egyptian Pyramids

The grass-covered mounds represent 11,000 years of human history.
by JoAnna Wendel via Live Science on August 26, 2022
Colorful portrait collage of Harriet Tubman with stars in the background

The Harriet Tubman Bicentennial Project

The Harriet Tubman Bicentennial Project explores the meaning of freedom through the example of one extraordinary life.
by Janell Hobson via Ms. Magazine on February 1, 2022
Abstract drawing of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe, Crank Scientist

The great discoveries of the age captivated Poe’s imagination. He almost always misunderstood them.
by Colin Dickey via The New Republic on July 21, 2021
An example of an almanac for New Jersey, from 1779

Inspiration Porn and Depictions of Impairment in Early America

How people understood disabilities in the 18th century, in contrast to contemporary interpretation, requires historical nuance.
by Meg Roberts via Public Disability History on July 1, 2021
A diagram of the phases of the Moon.

Man-Bat and Raven: Poe on the Moon

A new book recovers the reputation Poe had in his own lifetime of being a cross between a science writer, a poet, and a man of letters.
by Mike Jay via London Review of Books on June 24, 2021
Illustration of a bald eagle menacing a black parent and child in front of what appears to be a government building

Circulating the Facts of Slavery

How the American Anti-Slavery Almanac became an influential best seller.
by Teresa A. Goddu via Lapham’s Quarterly on July 28, 2020

The Histories Hidden in the Periodic Table

From poisoned monks and nuclear bombs to the “transfermium wars,” mapping the atomic world hasn’t been easy.
by Neima Jahromi via The New Yorker on December 27, 2019
Illustration of Peurifoy and others attempting to find homosexuals within the federal government.

The Homophobic Hysteria of the Lavender Scare

Despite a thriving queer community in Washington, the 1950s State Department fired gay and lesbian workers en masse.
by Kazimir Lee, Dorian Alexander via The Nib on May 31, 2019

When Good Scientists Go Bad

Science doesn’t make you magically objective, and it’s not separate from the rest of human experience.
by Maki Naro, Matthew Francis via The Nib on May 15, 2019
"Trip to the Moon" map, depicting a collage of the Moon, spacecraft, astronauts, and other space-related imagery.

During the Space Race, Gas Stations Gave Away Free Maps to the Moon

Standard Oil was not about to be left earthbound.
by Kyle Carsten Wyatt via Atlas Obscura on May 1, 2019

Historians Expose Early Scientists’ Debt to the Slave Trade

Key plant and animal specimens arrived in Europe on slavers’ ships
by Sam Kean via Science on April 3, 2019
comet

A Civil War Soldier Reflects on the Comet of 1861

Private Charles F. Johnson of the 9th New York Volunteer Infantry ponders an unusual celestial phenomenon.
by Jake Wynn via Emerging Civil War on October 25, 2017
A t-shirt that reads "Wanted: Notorious Disgrace to America," with a gun crosshair on Colin Kaepernick.

Spiders, Stars, and Death

It is worth taking a moment to recover the genealogy for the "crosshairs," the universal modern index of imminent violent killing.
by D. Graham Burnett via Cabinet on June 7, 2017
Edgar Allan Poe

On Edgar Allan Poe

Crypts, entombments, physical morbidity: these nightmares are prominent in Poe’s tales, a fictional world in which the word that recurs most crucially is horror.
by Marilynne Robinson via New York Review of Books on January 5, 2015

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