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The History of How School Buses Became Yellow

Rural educator Frank Cyr had the vision and pull to force the nation to standardize the color of the ubiquitous vehicle.
Hooded person shining a laser pointer at an airplane in the dark

A Blinding History of the Laser Pointer

They can wreck your eyes, and they can land you 14 years in jail for shining one at a police chopper. But where did they come from?
The poison squad, experimenters that tried poisons and studied their effects, drawn as men in suits striking dramatic poses.

Food Used to Be a Lot More Dangerous

Before the establishment of the modern FDA, anti-regulation attitudes ruled the world of food.

Before Black Lung, the Hawks Nest Tunnel Disaster Killed Hundreds

A forgotten example of the dangers of silica, the toxic dust behind the modern black lung epidemic in Appalachia.

When Televisions Were Radioactive

Anxieties about the effects of screens on human health are hardly new, but the way the public addresses the problems has changed.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Memorialist

Remembering victims of one of the worst workplace disasters in American history.
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The Real Reason the Trump Administration Went to War Over Breast-Feeding

On breast-feeding, Trump is following the Reagan formula.

When Deregulation is Deadly

Eight decades after the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist fire, corporate profits are still being valued more than workers' lives.

It's Against The Law for Employers To Make You Sick. Thank The 'Radium Girls' For That

100 years ago, factory workers fought to hold companies accountable for their radium poisoning.

A Historian’s Revealing Research on Race and Gun Laws

The notion that gun control has racist origins is popular in gun rights circles. Here's what's wrong with the claim.
tampon

The Tampon: A History

The cultural, political, and technological roots of a fraught piece of cotton.

This 1874 New York Herald Feature Sent Manhattanites Running for Their Lives

James Gordon Bennett Jr.'s most eccentric public service announcement.
Folk singer Tom Glazer performs in July 1965 for nearly 400 children enrolled in Head Start centers at Saratoga Square Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. (AP)

Evaluating the Success of the Great Society

Lyndon B. Johnson's visionary set of legislation turns 50 years old.
Black-and-white still image from the film "Dr. Strangelove," in which a man is shouting and waving his hat in the air while riding a missile in flight.

Almost Everything in “Dr. Strangelove” Was True

How Stanley Kubrick’s film “Dr. Strangelove” exposed dangers inherent in nuclear command-and-control systems.

How to Not Get Poisoned in America

"We should go back into history and ask: Why did we need the federal Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906?"
Chicago Workers' Cottages.

Chicago Workers Cottages Gave Immigrants Access to Homeownership

The cottages’ modest design provided entry-level homes after the Great Chicago Fire.
A drilling crew in the Hawk's Nest Tunnel.

On Raymond Thompson’s “Appalachian Ghost”

Black miners were intentionally erased from the record of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel Disaster. A new book reinserts them into the narrative.
A gavel smashing a wooden house.

The Constitutional Case Against Exclusionary Zoning

America is suffering from a severe housing shortage. A crucial tool may lie in the Constitution.
Bishop Desmond Tutu speaks at an International Conference Against Apartheid held in Atlanta, Georgia in 1986.

US Worker Movements and Direct Links Against Apartheid

Today's pro-Palestinian activists are utilizing anti-apartheid tactics from thirty years ago.
Nihomachi Hotel in Seattle's Japantown.

Seattle’s Japantown Was Once Part of a Bustling Red Light District — Until Residents Were Pushed Out

The erased histories of the communities that built Seattle.
Automobile with Maryland and Washington, DC, license plates, 1910
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Plate Tectonics

A brief history of the license plate.
An advertisement from China for soup with brain meat.

In Defense of Eating Brains

While some in the West are squeamish, globally, it's more common than not.
Young boy receiving polio vaccine from doctor

Hesitancy Against Hope: Reactions to the First Polio Vaccine

Hesitancy and opposition to vaccines has existed in the past, and such awareness provides needed context to the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine within American history.
Painting of the Great Fire of Pittsburgh from right outside the city

The Asbestos Times

Asbestos was a miracle material, virtually impervious to fire. But as we fixed city fires in other ways, we came to learn about its horrific downsides.
Crowd holding shirts with names of Triangle Fire victims

A Memorial Restores Humanity To The 146 Ghosts of the Triangle Fire

Over a century after one of New York City’s deadliest industrial accidents, the names of its victims, most of them women, are being enshrined in steel.
Destroyed buildings and streets in the aftermath of the Chicago fire.

What Really Started the Great Chicago Fire?

The famous disaster razed a metropolis and spread a pack of colorful lies. To sift through the ashes today is to encounter some uncomfortable truths.
Gun rights advocates holding Second Amendment rally at which police officer Dick Heller spoke, at the State Capitol in Frankfort, Kentucky, January 31, 2020.

The Remaking of the Second Amendment

The Supreme Court’s expanding interpretation of the Second Amendment threatens longstanding democratic authority to enact gun safety measures.
The Detroit Renewable Power waste incinerator

Dire Straits

A new history of Detroit’s struggles for clean air and water argues that municipal debt and austerity have furthered an ongoing environmental catastrophe.
US patent drawing of elevator bell signal.

Elevator Sounds

What are elevator passengers listening to?
International Women's Day marchers in San Antonio hold signs celebrating Emma Tenayuca.

The Militant Passion of Emma Tenayuca

84 years ago this week, this Mexican American labor organizer led one of the largest strikes in Texas history—and was arrested and blacklisted for her trouble.

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