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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
A Rare Pony Express Artifact
A letter that took two years to reach its destination evokes the hazards of the Pony Express
May 2010 |
By Owen Edwards
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
The Story of Bartram's Garden
Outside of Philadelphia, America's first botanical garden once supplied seeds to Founding Fathers and continues to inspire plant-lovers today
April 13, 2010 |
By Robin T. Reid
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
Mammoths and Mastodons: All American Monsters
A mammoth discovery in 1705 sparked a fossil craze and gave the young United States a symbol of national might
April 2010 |
By Richard Conniff
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 Top Ten Important Moments in Snowboarding History
Since its mid-1960s inception, snowboarding has seen such a boom in popularity that it is now an event at the Winter Olympics
February 05, 2010 |
By Paul J. MacArthur
The Scurlock Studio: Picture of Prosperity
For more than half a century the Scurlock Studio chronicled the rise of Washington's black middle class
February 2010 |
By David Zax
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
Radio Activity: The 100th Anniversary of Public Broadcasting
Since its inception, public radio has had a crucial role in broadcasting history - from FDR's "Fireside Chats" to the Internet Age
January 26, 2010 |
By Marina Koestler Ruben
Sugar Masters in a New World
Sevilla la Nueva, the first European settlement in Jamaica, is home to the bittersweet story of the beginning of the Caribbean sugar trade
January 12, 2010 |
By Heather Pringle
A Forgotten Tennessee Williams Work Now a Motion Picture
Written in the 1950s, The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond was forgotten until it was recently adapted into a major motion picture
January 04, 2010 |
By Chloë Schama
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
