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Readers respond to our September 2018 issue

A Boeing 747 takes flight.

Traveling the World Was Never the Same Once the Boeing 747 Debuted

Wave goodbye to the beloved jet that took us to new heights

The Artist Who Made Coloring Books Cool for Adults Returns With a New Masterpiece

Johanna Basford, whose fanciful, hand-drawn illustrations launched a worldwide craze, is back with flying colors

A female snowy owl leaves her nest as a human approaches. This is her first line of defense to not draw attention to the nest location.

Why Is the Snowy Owl Disappearing?

These birds, once a feature of the far north as reliable as ice, are becoming less and less common

Readers Discuss Our July/August 2018 Issue

Feedback from our readers

Mean Dog (Verso: Man Leading Mule), c. 1939-1942, by Bill Traylor, poster paint and pencil on cardboard

Born Into Slavery, Bill Traylor Would Become a Leading Light of Self-Taught Art

A new show at the Smithsonian American Art museum highlights his work

P.D. East (above as a young man) proclaimed that his Petal Paper was “a sheet designed to keep everyone happy.” That did not last.

Secrets of American History

What Made P.D. East the Fearless Wit of Forrest County

The newspaper man’s bravery rocked the racist establishment of the South—and heralded a new era of political satire

When Was the Earliest Internet Search?

Years before the birth of the Google, a forgotten experiment laid the groundwork for the ubiquitous search engine

Southern Chivalry – Argument versus Club's, John L. Magee

Before the Civil War, Congress Was a Hotbed of Violence

A new book from historian Joanne Freeman chronicles the viciousness with which elected officials treated each other

Could Lava Incinerate Trash and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

An American flag sits atop a gravestone in the cemetery of Oak Mountain Baptist Church in Shelby County, Alabama.

Secrets of American History

The Wild Road Trip That Launched the Populist Conservative Movement

How a fiery preacher and a maverick Army general took the nation by storm

LGBTQ students are five times more likely than straight peers to miss school because they feel unsafe.

How a Little Yellow Bus Came to the Rescue of a Persecuted Schoolboy

LGBTQ activist and journalist Bil Browning reminisces about the importance of a simple toy

The couch on which Freud’s patients lay became identified with psychoanalysis itself. He shipped it to London when he left Vienna.

Secrets of American History

What Drove Sigmund Freud to Write a Scandalous Biography of Woodrow Wilson?

The founder of psychoanalysis collaborated with a junior American diplomat to lambaste the former president

In 1776, the year she married, Julia Stockton Rush was painted by Charles Willson Peale.

Rediscovering a Founding Mother

Just-discovered letters herald the significance of an unsung Revolutionary woman, Julia Rush

Robert Smalls, memorialized in a bust at Beaufort’s Tabernacle Baptist Church, was sent to work in Charleston at age 12 after he started defying the strictures of slavery.

Secrets of American History

Terrorized African-Americans Found Their Champion in Civil War Hero Robert Smalls

The formerly enslaved South Carolinian declared that whites had killed 53,000 African-Americans, but few took the explosive claim seriously—until now

Bigfoot is still a big deal to many conspiracy theorists.

Why Do So Many People Still Want to Believe in Bigfoot?

The appeal of the mythical, wild man holds strong

How to Cipher Like a Soviet

See if you can figure out how the American code-breakers unraveled the complexities of the Russian codebook

Knights of the SMOTJ wear the red cross pattée, believed to have been first used by the Knights Templar in 1147.

Meet the Americans Following in the Footsteps of the Knights Templar

Disbanded 700 years ago, the most famous of the medieval Christian orders is undergoing a 21st century revival

Images of Vickie Jones for the March 1969 Jet profile.

The Counterfeit Queen of Soul

A strange and bittersweet ballad of kidnapping, stolen identity and unlikely stardom

Readers Discuss Our June 2018 Issue

Feedback from our readers

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