In 1941 in occupied Paris, brothers Maurice and Joseph play a last game of marbles before running home to their father’s barbershop. This is the day that will change their lives forever. With Read More →

Abraham Lincoln was born to poor parents, in a log cabin on the western frontier of a young nation. The unity of the United States, which had been built on the ideal that all people are… Read More →

Drug overdosing and death from prescription painkillers and heroin are at epidemic levels in the United States. How do people become addicted to opioids and other dangerous drugs, and why?… Read More →

This expanded edition of A Game for Swallows features a new, illustrated afterword, as Abirached reflects on the meaning of her memoir's title, the graffiti that inspired it, and the future… Read More →

"For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred [person] than agriculture."—Marcus Tullius Cicero,… Read More →

In the United States and around the world, AIDS remains a critical health issue. Statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that 1.1 million people in the United Read More →

Alice + Freda Forever is a gut-wrenching story of love, death, and the dangers of intolerance."—Bustle In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasn't her crime that… Read More →

February 21, 1965. Controversial civil rights leader Malcolm X is gunned down during a speech in Manhattan. Few were shocked by the news of Malcolm X‘s death. Since 1952 the former member of Read More →

Did you know . . . • Ancient Romans invented a machine to harvest grain? • Farmers in ancient China destroyed the pests that harmed crops by bringing in their natural predators? • The… Read More →

Did you know that people first used road signs more than 2,000 years ago? Did you know that Ancient Rome had its own postal service? Did you know that Egyptian writers used flakes of… Read More →

Did you know . . . • Ancient cultures measured time accurately with water clocks? • An engineer in the first century B.C. designed an odometer to calculate distance traveled? • People… Read More →

Did you know . . . • The ancient Maya built magnificent pyramid-temples? • Ancient Chinese builders created central home heating systems? • One ancient Greek monument was taller than a… Read More →

Did you know . . . • Ancient people used bows to drill holes and start fires? • The ancient Chinese built a machine to detect earthquakes? •The ancient Romans operated a factory for milling… Read More →

Did you know . . . • Doctors in ancient Peru performed brain surgery? • Ancient Greek doctors ran medical schools? • The ancient Indians knew how to protect people from smallpox? Medical… Read More →

Did you know . . . • People first used skis more than 8,000 years ago? • The first wheels were used in pottery—not for transportation? • Traffic jams often clogged the streets of ancient… Read More →

Did you know . . . • The Scythians used guerrilla warfare more than 2,500 years ago? • The Chinese general Sun-tzu wrote the first military manual in the fourth century B.C.? • Some ancient… Read More →

In 1829 Andrew Jackson became the seventh president of the United States, the first who did not come from a wealthy, east coast family. Jackson led an adventurous—some would say… Read More →

In the twenty-first century, military marine mammals detect lost equipment and underwater mines. Large rats are trained to find land mines in more than 80 countries. Military working dogs… Read More →

Was an innocent man wrongly accused of murder? On April 26, 1913, thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan planned to meet friends at a parade in Atlanta, Georgia. But first she stopped at the pencil… Read More →

Augusto Pinochet, commander-in-chief of Chile’s army, rose to power in 1973 when he participated in a military coup to overthrow the president, Salvador Allende. Allende was a Socialist, and… Read More →

From Delilah to Cleopatra, from Anne Boleyn and (bloody) Queen Mary, to Calamity Jane, Typhoid Mary and more, the 26 notorious women analyzed here all have rotten reputations. But were these… Read More →

In the 1880s, science witnessed a major shift: Charles Darwin proposed his theory of evolution. People dug up the first dinosaur fossils. And the field of paleontology—the study of ancient… Read More →

Riots over the medical use of cadavers, public access to institutions for the insane, and full-blown surgeries without the aid of anesthetics or painkillers. Welcome to the middle ages of… Read More →