How a self-taught linguist came to own an indigenous language.

On the brink of nuclear war, America’s bold response to the Soviet Union depended on an unknown spy agency operative.

Understanding Joe Biden by way of his favorite historian.

Expropriated Indigenous land is the foundation of the land-grant university system.

An interview with the historian Robin D.G. Kelley.

John Muir’s romantic vision obscured Indigenous ownership of the land—but a new generation is pulling away the veil.

On the legacy of Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette Johnson and her battle with the Deep South’s white power structure.

For the past 70 years, the Circle L 5 Riding Club in Fort Worth has been honoring the legacy of its forefathers.

“Around here the land swallows things.”

When an 11-year-old Black girl in Jim Crow America discovers a seemingly worthless plot of land she has inherited is worth millions, everything in her life changes—and the walls begin to close in.

On the British and American fascination with rocking chairs and upholstery springs in the 19th century.

How Abraham Lincoln’s lifelong struggle with clinical depression was a key to his presidency.

The Federal Writers’ Project narratives provide an all-too-rare link to our past.

He wants to save classics from whiteness. Can the field survive?

Our climate models could be missing something big.

Last year an antique Depression-era neon sign was excavated in Pasadena—but it dug up a troubling story along with it. On Nat King Cole, hot chicken, and Malibu’s racist past.

The mistakes and the struggles behind America’s coronavirus tragedy.

Genetic analysis of human remains found in the Himalayas has raised baffling questions about who these people were and why they were there.

A humble Scotsman saw something strange in the water—and daringly set out to catch it—only to have lecherous out-of-towners steal his fame and upend his quest.

A found diary holds a love story—and a mystery.

COBOL is a coding language older than Weird Al Yankovic. The people who know how to use it are often just as old. It underpins the entire financial system. And it can’t be removed. How a computer language controls the financial life of the world.

Henry Orenstein survived three years in concentration camps before creating Transformers and poker cameras.

Twenty-five years ago this month, “superpredator” was coined in The Weekly Standard. Media spread the term like wildfire, creating repercussions on policy and culture we are still reckoning with today.

On revisionist architecture.

Looking at the statues here, or anywhere, makes one wonder: Is abstraction simply the cardinal feature of any war where the loss is so much greater than whatever can be described as victory?

In 2005, Vanessa Mitchell moved into her dream home, a former medieval jail where England’s witches waited to hang and burn. When paranormal phenomena forced her to flee, she became convinced it was possessed by evil spirits.