The Oregon Trail has long occupied a special place in the American imagination — a fascination boosted by the popular Oregon Trail computer game, where players regularly suffered from dysentery, snakebites, and broken wagon axles. The real journey west was every bit as ...
Bridesmaids and groomsmen are among the most recognizable wedding traditions. These groups of close friends and family members are often a crucial part of celebrations today — a wedding party helps plan events, offers emotional support, and stands beside the couple on their ...
Think back to a favorite dish from childhood — one that appeared at family gatherings, holiday feasts, or Sunday dinners. Maybe it was a casserole or a dessert, or a special family recipe that had been handed down from one generation to the next. Yet somehow, you haven’t tas...
Celery isn’t exactly the most glamorous vegetable today; it’s usually reserved for soups or served unceremoniously alongside an order of chicken wings. But in the 19th century, it was an expensive delicacy associated with wealth and refinement. Wild celery had been used as a...
If anyone had reason to believe they were cursed, it was Robert Todd Lincoln. The eldest son of Abraham Lincoln was closely connected to three presidential assassinations over the course of his life — first his father’s, then those of Presidents James A. Garfield and William...
For much of modern history, being left-handed wasn’t just considered unusual — it was treated as a problem to be fixed. Well into the 20th century, teachers in Britain, North America, and elsewhere routinely forced left-handed children to learn to write with their right hand...
In 1440, a simple mapping mistake left the tiny Italian village of Cospaia in political limbo — and its residents quickly seized on the opportunity to declare their freedom. The mix-up began after Pope Eugene IV transferred the nearby town of Sansepolcro and the area a...
From our modern vantage point, the culinary options of bygone cultures are sometimes difficult to comprehend. It seems that hungry people gobbled down anything they could get their hands on, including dormice (rodents), beaver tails, and fish bladder jam. But while some of t...
Victorian fashion, like many aspects of British society during Queen Victoria’s reign, was defined by order, structure, and formality. Though styles evolved throughout the decades, from the voluminous bell skirts of the 1850s to the bustle-heavy silhouettes of the 1880s, som...
The Bronze Age was a period of extraordinary transformation that unfolded across many parts of the world between roughly 3300 and 1200 BCE. During this time, people mastered the process of smelting copper and tin into bronze, a durable metal that reshaped how humans farmed, ...
Strolling through an old European city or colonial American village, one structure often draws the eye before anything else: the clock tower. Often reaching high above rooftops and marketplaces, these architectural timekeepers have marked the passage of hours for centuries. ...
Today, sailing vessels and naval fleets use reverse-osmosis desalination systems to get drinking water right from the ocean. But before the modern age, sailors had one major preoccupation beyond storms, scurvy, shipwreck, and pirates: the need for fresh water. Surround...
The icons and symbols we use every day can feel like products of the modern world. Your phone connects via Bluetooth, your doctor’s office displays a snake-wrapped staff, and your computer is covered in tiny pictograms that tell you where to plug things in. But many fa...
Upper-class society in Victorian England was governed by strict social rules, and dining was no exception. This included, perhaps surprisingly, a correct way of eating asparagus. Etiquette guides often made a point of specifying that picking up a spear with your fingers was ...
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Tens of thousands of years before skin care routines started popping up on social media, Neanderthals — our supposedly brutish, decidedly unglamorous evolutionary cousins — were wearing makeup and even jewelry. This discov...
During the First Barons’ War in 1216, King John of England was on the move as rebel barons challenged his rule. With him was a convoy carrying the king’s goods and valuables, including his royal regalia. As John and his entourage attempted to cross the Wash, a wide tidal est...
Ancient Egypt has fascinated people for centuries — its towering pyramids, mysterious mummies, and richly decorated tombs have inspired everything from Hollywood blockbusters to bestselling novels. But beyond the legends and larger-than-life stories, historians now know more...
Since most of us walk into a grocery store with our minds fixated on the items needed to fill up the fridge and pantry, it’s rare that we take the time to marvel at the wonders of modern food shopping. Whether it’s a small neighborhood mart, a chain supermarket, or a gargant...
When we say we’re buying eggs at the grocery store or having eggs for breakfast, we’re almost always talking about one specific kind: chicken eggs. The average American eats more than 270 chicken eggs each year, making them one of the most common foods in the modern diet. Th...
“History is, in its essentials, the science of change.” So wrote the French historian Marc Bloch in 1949, and it’s true: History is indeed inextricably linked with change, and in some cases, the change is so fast and so monumental that just a single year can alter the trajec...
You might remember your mother or grandmother hosting a Tupperware party in the living room, with neighbors gathered around, sipping coffee and nibbling on dessert while someone demonstrated the magic of an airtight seal. Or maybe you still have a few pastel bowls of your ow...
If you’ve ever tried putting on a shirt that was designed for someone of the opposite gender, you may have noticed something peculiar: The buttons are on the “wrong” side. Men’s shirts button left over right, with buttons running down the right side and buttonholes on the le...
Have you ever wondered if your last name might have royal connections? Whether, through the centuries, your surname has traveled through the noble bloodlines of ancient empires and medieval kingdoms? Today, with genealogy websites and online surname databases, it’s easier th...
When French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville set sail on the first French voyage around the world in 1766, one member of the crew wasn’t supposed to be there. French naval regulations prohibited women from sailing aboard navy ships, but botanist Philibert Commerson was...
When Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” vanished from the Louvre in August 1911, police cast a wide net in search of suspects. One of the names they included was that of a young Spanish artist: Pablo Picasso. The trail began with a Belgian adventurer and petty thief named Honor...
If you dropped into a typical classroom today, you’d likely see flexible seating, group work, and active discussions between students and teachers. Compared to even a few decades ago, the contrast is striking. Many practices that are now considered outdated — or even unaccep...
Theodore Roosevelt is the only U.S. president with a national park named after him, but Roosevelt never actually worked as a park ranger — in fact, the only U.S. president to do so was Gerald Ford. In the summer of 1936, Ford worked a seasonal job as a ranger at Yellowstone ...
In the 1960s, New York City’s Greenwich Village — the Manhattan neighborhood located roughly between Houston and 14th streets, from the Hudson River to Broadway — was a hub of American counterculture. Once an upscale residential area in the 1800s, the neighborhood had change...
Before modern anesthesia, surgery was an agonizing experience. Procedures were done quickly and often with alcohol, opium, or nothing at all. That began to change in 1799, when 20-year-old English chemist Humphry Davy started experimenting with nitrous oxide — better known a...
Step into an average American bedroom in the mid-1920s and you’d find a room caught between two eras. The traditions of the 19th century hadn’t completely disappeared, yet many of the conveniences associated with modern homes were only beginning to spread. At the same ...
Subscribe
