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History / U.S. History

Robot server at the Two Panda Deli in Pasadena, California

The Disco-Blasting Robot Waiters of 1980s Pasadena

In 1983, a Chinese fast-food restaurant hired a curious-looking pair of servers: Tanbo R-1 and Tanbo R-2

Frank Costello testifying before the Kefauver Committee in March 1951

The Senator and the Gangsters

The radio-delivered newspaper machine of 1938

Print the News, Right In Your Home!

Decades before the Internet, radio-delivered newspaper machines pioneered the business of electronic publishing.

Flying ambulance of the future (1927)

The Flying Ambulance of Tomorrow

In the 1920s, a French inventor devised an ingenious way to provide emergency medical assistance

1928 article about astrologers predicting that 1929 will be a year of prosperity

Astrologers Predict 1929 Will Be Year of Prosperity

The world without the Great Depression looks a lot rosier in hindsight

Clarke has seen the future of war and says it will be fought by hackers.

Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack

America’s longtime counterterrorism czar warns that the cyberwars have already begun—and that we might be losing

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Foreseen Consequences

The art and science of looking ahead

The milkman's robot helper of the future as imagined by illustrator Arthur Radebaugh (1961)

The Milkman’s Robot Helper

Could futuristic technology have saved the milkman from extinction?

Storyville. Seated woman wearing striped stockings, drinking "Raleigh" Rye.

The Portrait of Sensitivity: A Photographer in Storyville, New Orleans’ Forgotten Burlesque Quarter

The Big Easy’s red light district had plenty of tawdriness going on—except when Ernest J. Bellocq was taking photographs of prostitutes

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Document Deep Dive

Document Deep Dive: What Does the Magna Carta Really Say?

A curator from the National Archives takes us through what the governing charter means

Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel's expertise in the realm of neuroscience is unsurpassed.

Austria

The Art and Science of Embarrassing Art

Neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel explores the flourishing of culture in Vienna

Edward S. Curtis' Canon de Chelly—Navajo (1904).

Edward Curtis’ Epic Project to Photograph Native Americans

His 20-volume masterwork was hailed as “the most ambitious enterprise in publishing since the production of the King James Bible”

Thomas Edison examines Clarence Dally's, his assistant, hand thru a fluoroscope of his own design.

Clarence Dally — The Man Who Gave Thomas Edison X-Ray Vision

“Don’t talk to me about X-rays,” Edison said after an assistant on one of his X-ray projects started showing signs of illness. “I am afraid of them.”

Laboratory technician injects tomatoes on the "factory farm" of the future (1961)

Super-Sized Food of the Future

How do you eat an eight-foot-long ear of corn?

A crowd of 250,000 jammed Times Square to see the start of the race.

Paris or Bust: The Great New York-to-Paris Auto Race of 1908

Even before there were roads, there were men who wanted to drive fast

The book reader of the future

The iPad of 1935

Yep, there was an app for that

Now celebrating its 100-year history, the Girl Scouts is the largest educational organization for girls in the world, with 3.3 million current members.

The Very First Troop Leader

A new biography tells the story of Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts

Seven Famous People Who Missed the Titanic

The notables who planned to sail on the fateful voyage included a world-famous novelist, a radio pioneer and America’s biggest tycoons

A life vest from the Titanic.

From the Editor: Fateful Encounters

The Titanic and the elusive nature of perception

John D. Lee, seated on his coffin, moments before his execution.

The Aftermath of Mountain Meadows

The massacre almost brought the United States to war against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but only one man was brought to trial: John D

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