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Great articles, every Saturday.

Sections

History

Crime History

Welcome to the Monkey House

In 1906, Enrico Caruso was arrested for molesting a young woman inside the Monkey House of Central Park Zoo, paving the way for the first celebrity trial of the 20th century.

David Suisman The Believer Jun 2004 15min Permalink

History

Rubber Stamp

The story of Charles Goodyear, who dedicated his life to inventing usable rubber yet has little to show for it, aside from his name on the side of a blimp.

Jason Zasky Failure Magazine Sep 2010 10min Permalink

Arts History Politics World

The Mega-Bunker of Baghdad

Foreign policy as architecture; how embassies went from lavish social hubs to reinforced strongholds.

William Langewiesche Vanity Fair Nov 2007 20min Permalink

History

Skin

A Holocaust detective story: could a lampshade pulled from the ruins of Katrina really be Buchenwald artifact made of human remains?

Mark Jacobson New York Sep 2010 30min Permalink

History Religion

Plaboy Interview: Malcolm X

Alex Haley interviews the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s number two - Malcolm X - in a Harlem restaurant.

Alex Haley, Malcolm X Playboy May 1963 35min Permalink

History World

Journeys Into History

Inside Rebecca West’s vast Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, an eerily timeless travelogue of the Balkans written on the eve of WWI.

Geoff Dyer The Guardian Aug 2006 15min Permalink

History

Pandora’s Briefcase

In “Operation Mincemeat” a vagrant’s corpse, raided from a London morgue, washed up on a beach in Spain, setting in motion an elaborate piece of espionage that fooled Nazi intelligence. Or did it?

Malcolm Gladwell New Yorker May 2010 20min Permalink

Arts History Music

Vanishing Act

The forgotten life of Eva Tanguay, perhaps America’s first rock star.

Jody Rosen Slate Dec 2009 15min Permalink

Best Article Arts History Music

The Stories of One Brooklyn Block

Vignettes of the residents of South Elliot Place.

Stacy Abramson New York Times Jul 2010 Permalink

Arts Crime History

The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel

In January 1966–the same month In Cold Blood was first published–Truman Capote sat down with George Plimpton to discuss the new art form he liked to call “creative journalism.”

George Plimpton, Truman Capote New York Times Jan 1966 35min Permalink

Arts History

David Mitchell Bends Fiction

A interview with David Mitchell, author of the recent The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and Cloud Atlas, on stretching a fictional universe across multiple novels and centuries of real history.

Wyatt Mason New York Times Jul 2010 Permalink

History Science

The Anosognosic’s Dilemma (Parts 1-5)

Through a series of interviews and historical inquiries, Errol Morris dissects Anosognosia, “a condition in which a person who suffers from a disability seems unaware of or denies the existence of his or her disability.”

Errol Morris New York Times Jul 2010 Permalink

History

Taman Shud Case

An unidentified body found near the beach in Australia in 1948. An unclaimed suitcase. A coded note.

Wikipedia 45min Permalink

History

The Day They Hanged An Elephant

In 1916, a down-on-its-luck traveling circus hung its star elephant.

J. V. Schroeder Blue Ridge Country Feb 2009 10min Permalink

History Politics

The Founders’ Great Mistake

The founding fathers deserve at least some of the blame for the worst presidencies in American history—they created an office that’s vaguely defined and ripe for abuse. Plus: how to fix it.

Garrett Epps The Atlantic Jan 2009 15min Permalink

History Sex

The Secret Court

In 1920, Harvard University officials suspected that some students were gay. So they kicked them all out.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis The Good Men Project Jun 2010 10min Permalink

History World

Piecing Together the Stasi’s Dark Legacy

In the chaotic days before the Berlin Wall fell, the East German secret police shredded 45 million pages. Fifteen years later, a team of computer scientists figured out how to put it all back together.

Andrew Curry Wired Jan 2008 15min Permalink

History

Inside the Bunker with Holocaust Deniers

The inner workings of a surprisingly amiable Holocaust denial conference.

John Sack Esquire Feb 2001 25min Permalink

Best Article History

Atomic John

The truck driver who reverse engineered the atomic bomb.

David Samuels New Yorker Dec 2008 40min Permalink

Arts History World

The Death of a Civil Servant

An uneasy friendship forms in colonial Ceylon between the future husband of Virgina Woolf and a socially repulsive police magistrate.

Lev Grossman The Believer May 2010 25min Permalink

History

The Man Who Turned off the Taps

Prohibition couldn’t have happened without Wayne B. Wheeler, who foisted temperance on a thirsty nation 90 years ago.

Daniel Okrent Smithsonian Permalink

History

Tea and Sympathy

The city of Boston, the Tea Party movement, and the rightful heir to the American Revolution.

Jill Lepore New Yorker Apr 2010 25min Permalink

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