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Y2K Sent a Warning. The CrowdStrike Outage Shows We Failed to Heed It.

The Year 2000 computer problem has become a punchline in recent years, but the CrowdStrike outage shows the joke's on us.
by Zachary Loeb via Made By History on July 24, 2024
A political cartoon of Charles Guiteau holding a pistol and a sign that reads "An Office or Your Life."

Why Are Presidential Assassins Such Sad Sacks?

What would-be killers of the US commander in chief have in common is that they aren’t fervent ideologues; they’re outcasts.
by Zack Budryk via The Nation on July 22, 2024
President Ronald Reagan, pictured waving to a crowd shortly before John Hinckley Jr. tried to assassinate him on March 30, 1981.

The History of Presidential Assassination Attempts, From Andrew Jackson to Teddy Roosevelt

Before last weekend’s attack on Donald Trump, would-be assassins targeted Ronald Reagan, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and seven other presidents or candidates.
by Meilan Solly via Smithsonian on July 17, 2024
Photos of assassination attempts on Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, and Gerald Ford.

Stop Pretending You Know How This Will End

The failed assassination of Donald Trump might not have any lasting effect on the election or politics in general.
by Derek Thompson via The Atlantic on July 16, 2024
Trent Reznor

Knots, Ties, and Lines: “The Downward Spiral” at Thirty

Nine Inch Nails, the Manson Family, and the contradictions of Los Angeles.
by Gianni de Falco via Cleveland Review of Books on July 16, 2024
Site of leaking underground gasoline tanks in Colorado.

How Environmental Law Created a World Awash in Toxic Chemicals

Putting the burden on the government to demonstrate significant risk of harm before regulating has allowed willful ignorance to undermine public health.
by William Boyd via LPE Project on May 28, 2024
graph of historic immigration data

How America Tried and Failed to Stay White

100 years ago the U.S. tried to limit immigration to White Europeans. Instead, diversity triumphed.
by Eduardo Porter, Youyou Zhou via Washington Post on May 15, 2024
Karl I of Austria.

Feeling Blessed

At the Habsburg Convention in Plano.
by Christopher Hooks via The Baffler on May 8, 2024
Collage of security camera image and newspaper articles from the Columbine shooting.

The Columbine-Killers Fan Club

A quarter century on, the school shooters’ mythology has propagated a sprawling subculture that idolizes murder and mayhem.
by Dave Cullen via The Atlantic on April 19, 2024
Title card of the cartoon, featuring FDR committing money to a federal housing program.

The Tragedy and Tenacity of Public Housing in America

A cartoon report on the only policy proven to address the housing shortage and how racism, inept management, and disinvestment led to long-term decline.
by Eric Orner via The Nation on March 18, 2024
Woodrow Wilson working at his desk on May 1, 1917.

Don’t Be So Quick to Laud Woodrow Wilson

An effort is underway to restore President Wilson’s reputation as a great reformer. His best reforms were won by a mass movement, often pushing against Wilson.
by Henry Snow via Jacobin on March 14, 2024
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in March 2015.

Kissinger Revisited

The former secretary of state is responsible for virtually every American geopolitical disaster of the past half-century.
by Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect on February 28, 2024
Colorful, psychedelic illustration of three dolphins in the center with a rainbow in the sky above them and a pool, ocean, palm trees, and sky below them

Tripping on LSD at the Dolphin Research Lab

How a 1960s interspecies communication experiment went haywire.
by Benjamin Breen via The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 27, 2024
A Taliban soldier standing on the ruins of the Bala Hissar fortress, Kabul, Afghanistan, 2021.

The Price of American ‘Safety’

New books on the War in Afghanistan endeavor to tell the realities of occupation and the "war on terror."
by Suzy Hansen via New York Review of Books on February 20, 2024
Charles Tiffany superimposed on handwriting and map of the transatlantic cable.

How the Tiffany & Co. Founder Cashed In on the Trans-Atlantic Telegraph Craze

Charles Lewis Tiffany bought surplus cable from the venture, turning it into souvenirs that forever linked his name to the telecommunications milestone.
by Robert Klara via Smithsonian on February 15, 2024
President Bill Clinton signing NAFTA

The Long Shadow of NAFTA

Neither side of the border has seen the benefits it was promised.
by Helen Andrews via The American Conservative on February 12, 2024
Woodrow Wilson.

The Poltergeist of Woodrow Wilson

We still live with the consequences of the 28th president’s fuzzy thinking.
by Sean Durns via The American Conservative on February 9, 2024
Painting of a square, white, house surrounded by trees, shrubbery, and a sidewalk.

Chicago Dream Houses

How a mid-century architecture competition reimagined the American home.
by Siobhan Moroney via Belt Magazine on January 29, 2024
At center: organized labor leader John L. Lewis surrounded by crowds of male workers of all races.

Fragile Juggernaut

Introducing a project on US labor history, exploring what we can learn from 1930s-1950s industrial struggles.
by Andrew Yamakawa Elrod via n+1 on January 24, 2024
Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat shake hands at the White House

A Brief History of Peace Talks, Israel & the Palestinians

Who's to blame for failures in 2000, 2001 & 2008?
by Zachary Foster via Palestine, In Your Inbox on December 29, 2023
Members of the National Woman's Party prepare to lobby their senators and congressmen to vote for the Equal Rights Amendment, ca. 1923.

Equal Rights Amendment Was Introduced 100 Years Ago — and Still Waits

America’s feminists felt confident when the Equal Rights Amendment was put before Congress 100 years ago this week. For a century, it’s failed to be enacted.
by Frederic J. Frommer via Retropolis on December 12, 2023
Bayard Rustin speaks from the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

Bayard Rustin Showed the Promise and Pitfalls of Coalition Politics

Bayard Rustin tried to forge a mass coalition to deliver progressive change. His failure to do so in the 1960s tells us much about building one today.
by Chris Maisano via Jacobin on December 9, 2023
Ronald Reagan signing anti-drug legislation as Nancy Reagan and legislators look on.
partner

America's War on Drugs Was Always Bipartisan—And Unwinnable

There was really only one big difference between liberal drug warriors and conservative ones.
by Matthew D. Lassiter via Made By History on December 7, 2023
Residents of Icaria, Iowa.

The 19th-Century Novel That Inspired a Communist Utopia on the American Frontier

The Icarians thought they could build a paradise, but their project was marked by failure almost from the start.
by John Last via Smithsonian on November 28, 2023
Residents seek higher ground on the roof of a home as floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina cover the streets on Tuesday, August 30, 2005 in New Orleans

How Hurricane Katrina Changed Disaster Preparedness

Hurricane Katrina exposed deep inequities in federal disaster response. "We never felt so cut off in all our lives."
by Yasmin Garaad via Scalawag on November 16, 2023
Rachel Maddow speaking

Rachel Maddow Offers a Chilling History Lesson — and Hope for Today

In her new book, ‘Prequel,’ she looks at a past moment of crisis that might help us understand both the threats we face today and how we can endure them.
by Kathleen Belew via Washington Post on October 17, 2023
President Clinton walks with Jiang Zemin past rows of Chinese soldiers.

It’s the Global Economy, Stupid

A new book on the Clinton presidency reveals how it abandoned a progressive vision for a finance-led agenda for economics and geopolitics.
by Lily Geismer via The American Prospect on October 6, 2023
Drawn picture of the tidal channel known as Hell Gate, in New York, circa 1775

Is There Sunken Treasure Beneath the Treacherous Currents of Hell Gate?

In the heart of New York City, a centuries-long hunt for Revolutionary War–era gold.
by Joaquim Salles via Atlas Obscura on September 27, 2023
John F. Kennedy shaking hands with Lyndon Johnson and Walter George

Samuel Moyn Can’t Stop Blaming Trumpism on Liberals

"Liberalism Against Itself" makes an incoherent attack on liberalism.
by Jonathan Chait via Intelligencer on September 7, 2023

The Disciplining Power of Disappointment

A new book argues that American politics are defined by unfulfilled desire.
by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor via The New Yorker on August 11, 2023
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