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A Buddhist monk stands next to a banner with a picture of monk Thich Quang Duc who set fire to himself to protest the Vietnam War.

Why Would Anyone Kill Themselves to Stop A War?

In the past 3 months, two people in the US have taken or risked taking their own lives in an attempt to change US policies on Palestine and call for a cease-fire.
by Ann Wright via Common Dreams on February 26, 2024
A drawing of the Lewis and Clark expedition.
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Did Meriwether Lewis Die by Suicide? The Answer Still Matters.

Lacking a sufficient support system, Meriwether Lewis did not have anyone close enough to help him.
by Jamie M. Bolker via Made By History on December 1, 2023
The Rev. Chad Varah, 66, at the entrance to his office below St. Stephen, Walbrook, the London church where he founded the Samaritans.

After a 1935 Tragedy, a Priest Vowed to Teach Kids About Menstruation

A teenage girl died by suicide after she started menstruating and not knowing what it was, in 1935. A bill in Florida wants to take us back to those times.
by Maham Javaid via Washington Post on March 25, 2023
Major Charles Whittlesey in his military uniform.

A Tragedy After the Unknown’s Funeral: Charles Whittlesey and the Costs of Heroism

While he did not die in a war, he can certainly be mourned as a casualty of war—as can the thousands of other veterans who have died by suicide.
by Jenifer Leigh van Vleck via Arlington National Cemetery on November 16, 2021
Two men holding picture of alien toward camera

Making Sense of Heaven’s Gate

An excerpt from the new anthology, “American Cult.”
by Robyn Chapman via The Nib on August 2, 2021
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Can Historical Analysis Help Reduce Military Deaths by Suicide?

A longer look reveals interesting patterns and may clarify what is driving a rise in suicides.
by Jeffrey Allen Smith, Michael Doidge, Ryan Hanoa, B. Christopher Frueh via Made By History on January 17, 2020
A drawing of Civil War soldiers toasting each other around a table as death, in the form of a skeleton, waits outside the tent (c. 1863).

Understanding Trauma in the Civil War South

Suicide during the Civil War and Reconstruction.
by Sarah Handley-Cousins, Diane Miller Sommerville via Nursing Clio on March 20, 2019
Painting by Chima Ikegwuonu depicting the Igbo Landing mass suicide, with a slave trader standing over handcuffed Igbo men on a ship, while other Igbo men resolutely entering the water.

Igbo Landing Mass Suicide

In 1803 one of the largest mass suicides of enslaved people took place when Igbo captives from what is now Nigeria were taken to the Georgia coast.
by Samuel Momodu via BlackPast on October 25, 2016
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
A gun shop in Dunedin, Florida.

America Fell for Guns Recently, and for Reasons You Will Not Guess

The US today has extraordinary levels of gun ownership. But to see this as a venerable tradition is to misread history.
by Megan Kang via Aeon on April 9, 2024
The iconic white lettered Hollywood sign

The Hidden History of the Hollywood Sign

“The sign has become a worldwide symbol of the Hollywood of the imagination, and it allows anyone who sees it to fill it with whatever meaning they want.”
by Nathan Smith via Smithsonian on July 13, 2023
Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation during the Vietnam War.

The Journalist Who Photographed the Burning Monk

The man behind an iconic Vietnam War image captured ‘the ugliest events of our time.'
by Ray E. Boomhower via Zócalo Public Square on June 8, 2023
Dorothea and Gladys Cromwell serving French troops outside the Cantine des Deux Drapeaux in Châlons-sur-Marne.

Strange, Inglorious, Humble Things

The Cromwell twins fled the constrictions of high society for the freedoms of the literary world. Ravenous for greater purpose, the twins then went to war.
by Justin Duerr via JSTOR Daily on November 9, 2022
Photograph of prison warden T. M. Osborne and two other men in a penitentiary hallway.

Were Early American Prisons Similar to Today's?

A correctional officer’s history of 19th century prisons and modern-day parallels. From Sing Sing to suicide watch, torture treads a fine line.
by Charles Neal via JSTOR Daily on January 19, 2022
Henry Adams and his wife, Clover Adams at Wenlock Abbey, England, 1873

A Posthumous Life

Family blessings are a curse, or they can be. The life of Henry Adams explained in his book Education.
by Brenda Wineapple via New York Review of Books on April 8, 2021

Jonestown’s Victims Have a Lesson to Teach Us, So I Listened

In uncovering the blackness of Peoples Temple, I began to better understand my community and the need to belong.
by Jamilah King via Mother Jones on November 16, 2018

Bohemian Tragedy

The rise, fall, and afterlife of George Sterling’s California arts colony.
by Joy Lanzendorfer via Poetry Foundation on February 26, 2018

The Falling Man

Since 9/11 the story behind the Falling Man, and the search for him, is our most intimate connection to the horror of that day.
by Tom Junod via Esquire on September 9, 2017
The Mount Carmel Center in Waco, Texas engulfed in flames

How Religious Literacy Might Have Changed the Waco Tragedy

Religious scholars argue that the Waco raid was not justified and that with more understanding of theology, the loss of life could have been avoided.
by Peter Feuerherd, Jean E. Rosenfield, Mary Zeiss Stange, Ivan Strenski via JSTOR Daily on April 19, 2017

The Curious Death of Oppenheimer’s Mistress

Who killed J. Robert Oppenheimer's Communist lover?
by Alex Wellerstein via Restricted Data: The Nuclear Secrecy Blog on December 11, 2015
Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's Great Depression

Abraham Lincoln fought clinical depression all his life. But what would today be treated as a "character issue" gave Lincoln the tools to save the nation.
by Joshua Wolf Shenk via The Atlantic on October 1, 2005
Belle da Costa Greene at her desk in the Morgan library.

Ambition, Discipline, Nerve

The qualities that enabled Belle da Costa Greene to cross the color line also made her a formidable negotiator and collector for J.P. Morgan’s library.
by Heather O’Donnell via New York Review of Books on April 24, 2025
Frank Wisner's photo covered with official seals.

The Making of a Cold War Spy

The life and work of Frank Wisner, one of the CIA’s founding officers, offers us a portrait of American intelligence’s excesses.
by Adam Hochschild via The Nation on March 11, 2025
Misery and Fortune of Women (1930).

The Lost Abortion Plot

Power and choice in the 1930s novel.
by Julia Cooke via The Point on June 11, 2024
Longshoremen on their lunch hour at the San Francisco docks.

Jack London, "Martin Eden" and The Liberal Education in US life

In Jack London’s novel, Martin Eden personifies debates still raging over the role and purpose of education in American life.
by Nick Romeo via Aeon on May 3, 2024
Tennessee Valley Authority.

The Dam and the Bomb

On Cormac McCarthy.
by Walker Mimms via n+1 on April 3, 2024
Robert Frost on his farm near Ripton, Vermont.

America’s Great Poet of Darkness

A reconsideration of Robert Frost at 150.
by Ed Simon via The Hedgehog Review on March 26, 2024
Willa Cather wearing a mink shawl and a large hat in Paris

Prairie Swooner

The hardscrabble origins and unique vision of novelist Willa Cather.
by Eric Banks via Bookforum on February 6, 2024
An advertisement from P.T. Barnum’s American Museum promoting a show called "Wild African Savages."

How U.S. Institutions Took an African Teen’s Life, Then Lost His Remains

Sturmann Yanghis, a 17-year-old South African, was put on stage in America as a “wild savage.” Harvard claimed his remains when he died. Then they disappeared.
by Sally H. Jacobs via Retropolis on December 3, 2023
Madame Restell

‘Hag of Misery’

The abortionist Madame Restell is central to the story of how American women’s reproductive freedom was dismantled in the second half of the nineteenth century.
by Susan Faludi via New York Review of Books on October 12, 2023
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