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History / World History

Captain James Cook set out on a voyage across the Pacific 250 years ago, seemingly on a scientific voyage. But he carried secret instructions from the Navy with him as well.

Captain Cook’s 1768 Voyage to the South Pacific Included a Secret Mission

The explorer traveled to Tahiti under the auspices of science 250 years ago, but his secret orders were to continue Britain’s colonial project

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 the spring of 2018, Angeline Nanni revisited Arlington Hall, where the Venona team got cracking. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Secrets of American History

The Women Code Breakers Who Unmasked Soviet Spies

At the height of the Cold War, America’s most secretive counterespionage effort set out to crack unbreakable ciphers

How to Cipher Like a Soviet

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

Throughout the mid-1800s, improvements on the spectroscope allowed physicists to more accurately measure the wavelengths of light and identify new elements—like helium.

How Scientists Discovered Helium, the First Alien Element, 150 Years Ago

First found only on the sun, scientists doubted the mysterious element even existed for more than a decade

The dairy aisle

Nut Milks Are Milk, Says Almost Every Culture Across the Globe

Even though the dairy industry may not like it, labeling the juice from almonds and soy beans ‘milk’ follows centuries of history

Vuë de la Ruë grande vers l'Eglise du Sud des Presbiteriennes a Boston. Augsbourg, 1778

European Printmakers Had No Idea What Colonial American Cities Looked Like, So They Just Made Stuff Up

To satisfy customers hungry for visions of the British colonies, these artists created wildly imaginative and inaccurate scenes

The Royal Library where the bill was found

The Prince Who Preordered Jane Austen’s First Novel

The future George IV was a big fan of the author, a feeling she half-heartedly reciprocated with a dedication years later

Heinz is why ketchup seemed to become distinctly American.

A Brief (But Global) History of Ketchup

Canada recently slapped a tariff on U.S. exports of ketchup, and the EU plans to do the same. But is the condiment all that American?

Pictured at center, Yekaterina Budanova was one of the only women fighter pilots of World War II, and remains one of the most successful in history.

A Soviet Ace Shot Down Nazi Pilots With Great Skill, But Her Feats Are Mostly Forgotten Today

Yekaterina Budanova, who died in combat 75 years ago today, reveals a larger story about the complicated history of women soldiers in the Red Army

Cover of a propaganda comic book, 1947. During the Cold War, book publishing and popular culture became an ideological battleground.

This Cold War-Era Publishing House Wanted To Share American Values With the World

Funded by the U.S. government, Franklin Publications was viewed as pushing imperialist propaganda

Socialists gather in New York City, but the crowd is conspicuously male-dominated considering the party's official stance on women's rights.

The Historical Struggle to Rid Socialism of Sexism

When it was founded, the Socialist Party of America proclaimed itself as the champion of women’s rights. The reality was much more complicated

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