History
99 articles-
History’s Five Best Body Part Stories
Charles I’s neck bone, Queen Victoria’s armpit, and other fabulously gruesome medical tales. -
Tesla’s Pigeon
An inventor, a bird, and a plan to connect all the minds in the world. -
Five Curiosities From Medical History
Photos from the Mütter Museum’s newly searchable collection. -
How Tourists Are Rescuing the Ancient City of Palmyra
Photographs taken from before terrorists destroyed the site are helping researchers digitally resurrect it. -
What Is a Beautiful Experiment?
Finding beauty in science is timeless. But we shouldn’t let it blind us. -
Finding the Color of an Empire
What a particular shade of black can teach us about an ancient civilization. -
The 19th-Century Trippers Who Probed the Mind
In the age of self-experiment, scientists took mind-altering drugs to test the limits of subjectivity. -
The Ancient Architecture that Defies Earthquakes
Stone buildings in northern India reveal secrets of old structures that could save lives. -
The Strange Life of Glass
This essential substance has a history—and future—that’s far from clear. -
The Explosive Chemist Who Invented Smokeless Gunpowder
James Dewar, the creator of cordite, likely helped win World War I. But why never a Nobel?
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How Was Abortion Understood Historically?
One question for Claudia Ford, an herbalist and midwife turned environmental historian at SUNY.
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Termination of Pregnancy Has Always Been Part of Women’s Health
Plants, prejudice, and history lessons for a post-Roe nation.
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One of the Most Egregious Ripoffs in the History of Science
A new history of the race to decipher DNA reveals Shakespearean plots of scheming. -
The Disneyfication of Atomic Power
Inside America’s propaganda campaign, “Atoms for Peace,” launched in the wake of Hiroshima. -
The History of Locker-Room Talk
Why men put down other men by attacking their masculinity. -
Tarzan Wasn’t for Her
It took an outsider to restore women to the story of human evolution. -
The Botanist Who Defied Stalin
His dream of feeding the world died in prison. His dream of a seed bank lives on.
