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Sections

History

History

The Murder of Preston Porter Jr. and Colorado's Grim History of Lynchings

The story of a lynching in rural CO in 1900, while hundreds watched, done with the complicity of press and cops, and why it still resonates today.

Alan Prendergast Westword Nov 2018 25min Permalink

History

Ghosts of Greenwood

A reporter encounters the echoes of family and the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi.

Nikole Hannah-Jones ProPublica Jul 2014 30min Permalink

History Sports

Lady Leadfoot

She raced cars when few women dared. But more than trophies or prize money, it was the zen of driving that pulled her in. This is the story of Denise McCluggage, America’s once-fastest woman.

Amy Wallace Sports Illustrated, Epic Magazine Oct 2018 Permalink

Arts History

The Comedians, The Mob and the American Supperclub

It didn't matter if these clubs were in Cleveland, Portland, Corpus Christi or Baton Rouge—if it was a nightclub, the owners were the Mob. For a good forty years the Mob controlled American show business.

Kliph Nesteroff WFMU Feb 2012 30min Permalink

History

Rainbow Farm: The Domestic Siege That Time Forgot

A week before 9/11, a five-day standoff at a 34-acre campground in rural Michigan that been the site of marijuana festivals ended with the killing of the couple that owned it, Tom Crosslin, 46, and Rolland “Rollie” Rohm, 28.

Jeff Winkler The Outline Oct 2018 30min Permalink

History

My Great-Grandfather the Bundist

On the history of the Bund, an armed, socialist anti-Zionist group that was once the most popular Jewish party in Poland until they were murdered in the Holocaust.

Molly Crabapple NY Review of Books Oct 2018 20min Permalink

Best Article Crime History

The Love Story that Upended the Texas Prison System

In 1967, a 56-year-old lawyer met a young inmate with a brilliant mind and horrifying stories about life inside. Their complicated alliance—and even more complicated romance—would shed light on a nationwide scandal, disrupt a system of abuse and virtual slavery across the state, and change incarceration in Texas forever.

Ethan Watters Texas Monthly Oct 2018 1h10min Permalink

History

The Ghosts of the Glacier

When the Swiss Alps heat up, the ice gives up bodies and secrets.

Sean Flynn GQ Oct 2018 20min Permalink

History Health

Here Was a Plague

The AIDS crisis as it unfolded in America is an object lesson in the danger, the potential violence, inherent in organized prejudice.

Tom Crewe London Review of Books Sep 2018 55min Permalink

History

Descend Into Great Britain’s Network of Secret Nuclear Bunkers

In the mid-20th century, Great Britain maintained a network of 1,500 underground, volunteer-staffed bunkers in case of nuclear war. Now, one man is restoring two of these abandoned shelters to period-perfect condition.

Kate Ravilious Atlas Obscura Sep 2018 15min Permalink

History

The Man Who Walked Backward

When the Great Depression put Plennie Wingo’s bustling Abilene cafe out of business, he tried to find fame, fortune, and a sense of meaning the only way he knew how: by embarking on an audacious trip around the world on foot. In reverse.

Ben Montgomery Texas Monthly Aug 2018 30min Permalink

Crime History

Wikipedia: Sada Abe

Sada Abe, a former geisha, became a sensation in 1930s Japan after erotically asphyxiating her married lover, cutting off his penis and testicles and carrying them in her kimono for days.

Wikipedia Permalink

Best Article History

Tribes

Generations of the writer’s family experience the “romantic delusions and hazardous fortunes” of San Francisco.

Nathan Heller New Yorker Aug 2018 20min Permalink

History

Axes of Evil

Four days, two murders, and one poplar tree that almost ignited World War III.

Josh Dean The Atavist Magazine Aug 2018 50min Permalink

Best Article History Science

Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

We knew everything we needed to know, and nothing stood in our way. Nothing, that is, except ourselves.

Nathaniel Rich New York Times Magazine Aug 2018 2h5min Permalink

History

Language at the End of the World

On rongorongo, which no one can decipher.

Jacob Mikanowski Cabinet Magazine Jul 2018 25min Permalink

History Media

The Extraordinary Life of Martha Gellhorn, the Woman Ernest Hemingway Tried to Erase

A maverick war correspondent, Hemingway’s third wife was the only woman at D-Day and saw the liberation of Dachau. Her husband wanted her home in his bed.

Paula McLain Town & Country Jul 2018 15min Permalink

History

The 1925 Cave Rescue That Captivated the Nation

America’s first viral story was of a Kentucky cave explorer, Floyd Collins, and the epic effort to rescue him.

Lucas Reilly Mental Floss Jul 2018 40min Permalink

History

Directions

What happens when your neighborhood, your city, seem to have lost their way?

Robert Sullivan Places Journal Jun 2018 25min Permalink

History

Ordinary Person, Wild Radical

Seventeen years before the Stonewall Riots, Dale Jennings proclaimed to a California court that he was a homosexual. It was the first glimmer of a civil rights revolution. This is the story of an unsung, and reluctant, hero.

Peyton Thomas The Atavist Jul 2018 45min Permalink

Crime History

“An Odd, Almost Senseless Series of Events”

Every law student knows John Brady’s name. But few know the story of the bumbling murder that ended in a landmark legal ruling.

Thomas L. Dybdahl The Marshall Project Jun 2018 20min Permalink

History Media

How I Broke, and Botched, the Brandon Teena Story

The original writer of the Village Voice story that inspired “Boys Don’t Cry” looks back on her reporting—and the huge error she still regrets.

Donna Minkowitz Village Voice Jun 2018 20min Permalink

History Travel

As Goes the South, so Goes the Nation

“The echoing horror of slavery cuts both ways. We are often afraid to say what we know is true. The South is disaster and it is also miracle.”

Imani Perry Harper's Jul 2018 20min Permalink

History

The Last House in Rosewood

An important house in Florida history is for sale, its future uncertain. Some want the historic house preserved, while the racism that fueled the Rosewood riots remains.

Lane DeGregory Tampa Bay Times Jun 2018 10min Permalink

History Politics

Will the Fervor to Impeach Donald Trump Cause a Democratic Civil War?

Inside the cases for—and against—his removal from office.

Jeffrey Toobin New Yorker May 2018 30min Permalink

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