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Horses with ribbons and a man counting his gambling winnings.

History’s Greatest Horse Racing Cheat and His Incredible Painting Trick

In the sport’s post-Depression heyday, one audacious grifter beat the odds with an elaborate scam: disguising fast horses to look like slow ones.
by Josh Nathan-Kazis via Narratively on June 6, 2019
Storefront destruction from the the 1967 Detroit Riots.

A Pioneer of Paranoia

How William Cooper envisioned a web entangling global capitalism, the government, and UFOs, and incubated the politics of conspiracy.
by Colin Dickey via The New Republic on August 28, 2018

The Counterfeit Queen of Soul

A strange and bittersweet ballad of kidnapping, stolen identity and unlikely stardom.
by Jeff Maysh via Smithsonian on June 28, 2018

The Quest to Break America’s Most Mysterious Code—And Find $60 Million in Buried Treasure

A set of 200-year-old ciphers may reveal the location of millions of dollars’ worth of treasure buried in rural Virginia.
by Lucas Reilly via Mental Floss on June 4, 2018

White Supremacy Is the Achilles Heel of American Democracy

Even in a high-tech era, fears about minority political agency are the most reliable way to destabilize the U.S. political system.
by Vann R. Newkirk II via The Atlantic on April 17, 2018

The Racist History of the ‘Crisis Actor’ Attacks on Parkland School Shooting Survivors

Courageous Americans have been undermined by conspiracy theories for more than 150 years.
by Michael E. Miller via Retropolis on February 23, 2018

The Strange History of One of the Internet's First Viral Videos

Back when video of Vinny Licciardi smashing a computer zigzagged all over the internet, "viral" wan't even a thing yet.
by Joe Veix via Wired on January 12, 2018

What Facebook Did to American Democracy

And why it was so hard to see it coming.
by Alexis C. Madrigal via The Atlantic on October 12, 2017
19th century illustration of P. T. Barnum's white elephant Toung Taloung

Race and the White Elephant War of 1884

A bizarre episode in circus history became an unlikely forum for discussing 19th-century theories of race.
by Ross Bullen via The Public Domain Review on October 11, 2017

Nativism, Violence, and the Origins of the Paranoid Style

How a lurid 19th-century memoir of sexual abuse produced one of the ugliest features of American politics.
by Mike Mariani via Slate on March 22, 2017
William Buckley stands behind a podium, surrounded by a throng of people, and waves.

The Real Bill Buckley

Even some liberals toasted William F. Buckley Jr. as a patrician gentleman. A long-awaited new biography corrects that record.
by Nicole Hemmer via Democracy Journal on June 17, 2025
Betty and Barney Hill holding "The Interrupted Journey" by John G. Fuller.

The UFO Story of Betty and Barney Hill: Why Their Fight To Be Believed Was An American Tragedy

Betty and Barney Hill lost three hours on a New Hampshire highway in 1961. They spent years trying to understand it.
by Colin Dickey via Slate on September 11, 2023
Diagram with three mollusks

Edgar Allan Poe: Pioneering Mollusk Scientist

Poe’s work reminds us that the separation of “Arts” and “Sciences” into discrete discourses of knowledge is itself a quite recent invention.
by James D. Lilley via Commonplace on November 1, 2022
Black Americans getting off a bus during a "reverse freedom ride."

Racist Busing Rides Again

Moving migrants from Texas to Democratic strongholds is not new. The Reverse Freedom Rides of the 1960s hold lessons for activists of today.
by Matthew van Meter via Texas Observer on September 28, 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
Maggie and Kate Fox

Why Did Everyone in the 19th Century Think They Could Talk to the Dead?

Kevin Dann on the spiritualists of New York City and beyond.
by Kevin Dann via Literary Hub on January 5, 2021
A newsboy holding a bag of papers.

Popular Journalism’s Day in ‘The Sun’

The penny press of the nineteenth century was a revolution in newspapers—and is a salutary reminder of lost ties between reporters and readers.
by Batya Ungar-Sargon via New York Review of Books on December 15, 2020

Jubilee Jim Fisk and the Great Civil War Score

In 1865, a failed stockbroker tries to pull off one of the boldest financial schemes in American history: the original big short.
by David K. Thomson via Boston Globe Magazine on April 22, 2020
Amy Cooper calling the police on Christian Cooper, a Black birdwatcher.
partner

Amy Cooper Played the Damsel in Distress. That Trope Has a Troubling History.

Purportedly protecting white women has justified centuries of racist violence — while doing little to actually protect white women.
by Mia Brett via Made By History on March 28, 2020

Resistance to Immunity

A review of three recent books that delve into the history and science of vaccines and immunity, and the anxieties that accompany them.
by Gavin Francis via New York Review of Books on May 23, 2019

The Wild Weird World of American Roadside Attractions

From "real" mermaids in Florida to the world's largest ball of twine, pulling off the highway is more fun than you would think.
by Richard Ratay via Literary Hub on July 3, 2018

A Brief History of Sex on the Internet

An excerpt from "The Naughty Nineties: The Triumph of the American Libido."
by David Friend via Wired on September 15, 2017
New York City (New York, USA), Brooklyn Bridge.
partner

Over Troubled Waters

Looking for an easy buck, con artists in the early 1900s infamously "sold" the Brooklyn Bridge to immigrants fresh off the boat.
via BackStory on October 20, 2016
Picture of a suburban neighborhood.

The Suburban Horror of the Indian Burial Ground

In the 1970s and 1980s, homeowners were terrified by the idea that they didn't own the land they'd just bought.
by Colin Dickey via The New Republic on October 19, 2016
Charles Hatfield.

When San Diego Hired a Rainmaker a Century Ago, It Poured

After Charles Hatfield began his work to wring water from the skies, San Diego experienced its wettest period in recorded history.
by Christopher Klein via JSTOR Daily on December 12, 2015
A woman named Mary Bowser.

The Spy Photo That Fooled NPR, the U.S. Army Intelligence Center, and Me

A story of a mistaken identity reveals a lot about the history of black women in America, the challenges of understanding the past, and who we are today.
by Lois Leveen via The Atlantic on June 27, 2013

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