Victorian Womanhood, in All Its Guises
Frances Benjamin Johnston's self-portraits show a woman was never content playing just one role
May 2010 |
By Victoria Olsen
Mark Twain in Love
A chance encounter on a New Orleans dock in 1858 haunted the writer for the rest of his life
May 2010 |
By Ron Powers
Lincoln's Missing Bodyguard
What happened to Officer John Parker, the man who chose the wrong night to leave his post at Ford's Theater?
April 08, 2010 |
By Paul Martin
A 160-Year-Old Photographic Mystery
In 1851, Levi Hill claimed he invented color photography. Was he a genius or a fraud?
April 2010 |
By Amanda Bensen
Ireland's Forgotten Sons Recovered Two Centuries Later
In Pennsylvania, amateur archaeologists unearth a mass grave of immigrant railroad workers who disappeared in 1832
April 2010 |
By Abigail Tucker
Lewis Carroll's Shifting Reputation
Why has popular opinion of the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland undergone such a dramatic reversal?
April 2010 |
By Jenny Woolf
The Great British Tea Heist
Botanist Robert Fortune traveled to China and stole trade secrets of the tea industry, discovering a fraud in the process
March 09, 2010 |
By Sarah Rose
Abraham Lincoln, True Crime Writer
While practicing law in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln defended a man in a highly unusual case and later recounted the mystery as a short story
February 10, 2010 |
By Laura Helmuth
The Changing Definition of African-American
How the great influx of people from Africa and the Caribbean since 1965 is challenging what it means to be African-American
February 2010 |
By Ira Berlin
Renoir's Controversial Second Act
Late in life, the French impressionist's career took an unexpected turn. A new exhibition showcases his radical move toward tradition
February 2010 |
By Richard Covington
Sherlock Holmes' London
As the detective stalks movie theaters, our reporter tracks down the favorite haunts of Arthur Conan Doyle and his famous sleuth
January 2010 |
By Joshua Hammer
Phineas Gage: Neuroscience's Most Famous Patient
An accident with a tamping iron made Phineas Gage history's most famous brain-injury survivor
January 2010 |
By Steve Twomey
Man-Eaters of Tsavo
They are perhaps the world’s most notorious wild lions. Their ancestors were vilified more than 100 years ago as the man-eaters of Tsavo
January 2010 |
By Paul Raffaele
How Arlington National Cemetery Came to Be
The fight over Robert E. Lee's beloved home—seized by the U.S. government during the Civil War—went on for decades
November 2009 |
By Robert M. Poole
The Rescue of Henry Clay
A long-lost painting of the Senate's Great Compromiser finds a fitting new home in the halls of the U.S. Capitol
November 2009 |
By Fergus M. Bordewich
Historical Laughter
Those who don't have power tend to make fun of those who do. But what happens when the power shifts?
November 2009 |
By Lance Morrow
The Ghost Wineries of Napa Valley
In the peaks and valleys of California’s wine country, vinters remember the region’s rich history and rebuild for the future
October 27, 2009 |
By Matt Kettmann
Meriwether Lewis' Mysterious Death
Two hundred years later, debate continues over whether the famous explorer committed suicide or was murdered
October 09, 2009 |
By Abigail Tucker
John Brown's Day of Reckoning
The abolitionist's bloody raid on a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry 150 years ago set the stage for the Civil War
October 2009 |
By Fergus M. Bordewich
John Brown's Famous Photograph
An 1840s image captures an extremist's fervor
September 21, 2009 |
By Owen Edwards
