Lists and Stories

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  Attack on Pearl Harbor Timeline This infographic concerns the Japanese attack of December 7, 1941, on Pearl Harbor, the base of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Below a large frontal image of a Japanese military aircraft, flanked by small U.S. and Japanese flags, the infographic displays a quotation...
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  Attendees of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Funeral On April 4, 1968, the United States was shaken to its core by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the country’s preeminent civil rights leader. In desperation and rage, more than 100 U.S. cities erupted in arson, looting, and violence. In a display of deep respect for King’s...
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  Avengers Assemble! The Avengers: Age of Ultron, the latest addition to the Marvel cinematic universe, opened in theaters around the world. spotlight, avengers, comics, pop culture, film, joss whedon, marvel, age of...
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  Barack Obama’s Presidential Legacy Barack Obama became the 44th president of the United States and the country’s first African American chief executive on January 20, 2009, having embraced the audacious hope of promoting a more-inclusive America, providing affordable health care for all of its citizens, arresting climate change, and...
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  Battles of World War I These battles, listed in alphebatical order, determined the outcome of World War I. list, Marne, World War I, Ypres, Amiens, battles Amiens marked the beginning of a string of Allied offensive successes on the Western Front that led to the collapse of the German army and the end of the war. Cambrai...
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  Be Transported by These 5 Claude Monet Paintings Claude Monet was the creator and leader of the Impressionist style. These five paintings are just a sampling of his accomplishments. Earlier versions of the descriptions of these paintings first appeared in 1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die, edited by Stephen Farthing (2018). Writers’...
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  Beatrix Potter at 150 July 28, 2016, marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Beatrix Potter, celebrated English author and illustrator of children’s books. Potter wrote 24 children’s tales, infused with Victorian and Edwardian morality, and brought to life many beloved animal characters, including Peter Rabbit,...
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  Beautiful Gibberish: Fake Arabic in Medieval and Renaissance Art In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, painters and sculptors often incorporated inscriptions into their work. Many of these were legible texts in Latin or other European languages, but sometimes painters reached east, borrowing the languages of the Holy Land. Arabic was especially popular, but...
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  Beethoven at 245 “Dieses Glas dem guten Geist” (“This glass to the good spirit”). So wrote Friedrich Schiller in his poem “An die Freude,” some of which Ludwig van Beethoven used in the glorious ending to his Ninth Symphony. In that vein, we propose that you turn on Stephen Kovacevich’s recording of Piano Sonata in...
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  Before the E-Reader: 7 Ways Our Ancestors Took Their Reading on the Go The iPhone was released in 2007. E-books reached the mainstream in the late 1990s. Printed books have been around since the 1450s. But how did writing move around before then? After all, a book—electronic or not—is simply a mechanism for making written information portable. And our ancestors were...
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  Behind the Scenes: 12 Historical Figures in Wolf Hall “Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived” is how some of us remember in order the fates of the six wives of Henry VIII. Henry’s lifetime affords one of the most compelling and world-altering narratives in European history. Showtime gave us the sex and gore—and some great costumes and...
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  Behind the Scenes: 12 Real-Life Characters of Texas Rising Although the History Channel’s Texas Rising miniseries is “inspired” by the true story of the Texas Revolution, it doesn’t purport to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Not that there is anything wrong with taking some literary license in pursuit of additional drama, excitement, and...
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  Behind the Scenes: 7 Historical Figures in Beatles Lyrics While much of the mega-popular catalog of Beatles ballads references a generic “she” or “him” or “girl” or “baby,” the Fab Four did sometimes make mention of specific people. Some of them—like a certain infamous Chairman and a fellow music legend—you may have heard of. Others you might not even...
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  Behind the Scenes: 7 Times Downton Abbey Stealthily Taught You History The British historical drama program Downton Abbey has captivated audiences all over the world with its stories of the trials and tribulations of an aristocratic family, their servants, and the fate of their eponymous estate. Many of those stories, rooted in relationships and melodrama, transcend...
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  Behind the Scenes: 9 Historical Inspirations for Game of Thrones Millions of viewers have been captivated by the fictional kingdoms depicted in HBO’s fantasy series Game of Thrones, which translates the novels by George R.R. Martin to the small screen. The sometimes over-the-top violence, drama, and magic are often written off as the stuff of fiction, but...
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  Behind the Scenes: 9 Infamous Mobsters of the Real Boardwalk Empire The acclaimed HBO series Boardwalk Empire began with the enactment of Prohibition in 1920 and followed the efforts of political boss Nucky Thompson (played by Steve Buscemi) to keep the liquor flowing through the Roaring Twenties. Prohibition ended in 1933, but how did the Boardwalk Empire...
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  Beyond Pi: 7 Underrated Single-Letter Variables and Constants No one can deny that pi (π, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) is a useful constant—drafted into service every day in furniture workshops, in precision toolmaking, and in middle-school and high-school mathematics classes around the world. π is used to calculate the volumes...
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  Beyond the Cabbage: 10 Types of Kimchi Kimchi is the iconic dish of Korean cuisine and has been gaining popularity worldwide in the past decade or so for its health benefits and its just plain deliciousness. Most people who are new to Korean food think of kimchi as the red, spicy, garlic-laden fermented cabbage dish that usually...
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  Black Panther Party: 7 Notable Figures Founded in 1966, the Black Panther Party reached its peak just a few years later, although it did not disband until 1982. Despite its relatively short duration, the group created an enduring—though controversial—legacy. The Panthers’ campaign for African American equality not only had a lasting...
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  Black Pirates and the Tale of Black Caesar During the ”golden age” of piracy in the late 1600s and early 1700s, a pirate ship was one of the few places a Black man could attain power and money in the Western Hemisphere. Some of these Black pirates were fugitive slaves in the Caribbean or other coastal areas of the Americas. Others joined...