Whether you know him as Batman, the Caped Crusader or the Dark Knight, there’s something about the pointy ears and the cool gadgets that make him one of the most intriguing superheroes of all time.
Derek Black, a professor of education, civil rights and constitutional law at the University of South Carolina, is among the leading U.S. scholars on the landmark Brown decision.
A new study released May 7 in the journal PLOS ONE suggests that people who survived the medieval mass-killing plague known as the Black Death lived significantly longer and were healthier than people who lived before the epidemic struck in 1347. University of South Carolina researcher Sharon DeWitte's findings have important implications for understanding emerging diseases and how they impact the health of individuals and populations of people.
Margaret Salazar-Porzio ayuda a contar la historia de los latinos en los Estados Unidos, adquiriendo objetos y desarrollando exposiciones en el Museo Nacional de Historia Americana.
Sidney Hillman Foundation’s Sol Stetin Award is presented to a scholar who has contributed to greater public knowledge of the labor movement and working people in America.
Smithsonian curator Margaret Salazar-Porzio helps tell the story of Latinos in the United States. She talks about her work in this short video profile.
The cultural heritage of Syriac, an important language in the spread of early Christianity in the Middle East, is being preserved through the international collaboration known as Syriaca.org.
A review of recent research on the domestication of large herbivores for “The Modern View of Domestication,” a special feature of PNAS, suggests that neither intentional breeding nor genetic isolation were as significant as traditionally thought.
Seventy years after combat in the small town of Tremensuoli, Italy, the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History brings to life the story of an American GI who served in the battle and literally left his mark on that community.
The transition from home to the battlefield and back home again is a long and, at times, bumpy road for war veterans. University of Kentucky brings the "Voices of Student Veterans" to life in theaters across the Commonwealth.
Historian Liang Cai argues that Confucianism did not become the prevailing political ideology of imperial China until after the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han dynasty, a claim that upends conventional wisdom on the subject.
Beginning on March 17, Cornell professors Edward Baptist and Louis Hyman invite students, scholars and citizens everywhere to join them for “American Capitalism: A History,” a massive open online course. It's a chance to explore the people, markets and investments that transformed America's 13 backwater colonies into a global power.
In a new biography by historian Daniel E. Sutherland, the artist James McNeill Whistler’s public personality is revealed as much different than the lesser-known life he led in private.
The ruins of Sardis have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity since the 7th century B.C., when the city was the capital of Lydia. Now, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.
A pioneering digital humanities project at the University of Chicago and Oxford University, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, will use data analysis techniques to develop an open-source commonplace book. Identifying and analyzing these commonplaces will shed light on how knowledge spread and transformed in the early modern period.
Since Hank Williams’ death in 1953, journalists, biographers, historians and scholars have written extensively about the country music legend. This new book examines Williams’ place in American history and popular culture.
Epidemiological data integrated with climate data estimated from tree-ring measurements indicate that drought contributed to the spread of epidemic typhus in Mexico during the pre-modern era (1655 to 1918).
Did President Barack Obama create such high expectations that they actually hindered his ability to enact his agenda? Should we judge his performance by the scale of the expectations his rhetoric generated, or against some other standard? A new book, “The Rhetoric of Heroic Expectations: Establishing the Obama Presidency,” grapples with these and other important questions.
The 2014 Winter Olympics are underway and athletes from around the world are getting ready to take to the ice in speed skating, figure skating, ice dancing and hockey. Today’s skaters have the advantage of being able to practice year-round in indoor rinks, but what did 19th-century athletes do to stay competitive? They used the Volito.
Before commercial whaling was outlawed in the 1980s, diplomats, scientists, bureaucrats, environmentalists, and sometimes even whalers themselves attempted to create an international regulatory framework that would allow for a sustainable whaling industry.
In “Whales and Nations: Environmental Diplomacy on the High Seas,” (University of Washington Press, 2014) Kurkpatrick Dorsey, associate professor of history at the University of New Hampshire, tells the story of the international negotiation, scientific research, and industrial development behind these efforts - and their ultimate failure.
University of Delaware professor Debra Hess Norris can’t resist quoting a few lyrics from her favorite band of all time — the Beatles — in her lectures on photograph preservation.
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of the “British Invasion” in America, UD's UDaily news service talks with Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts at UD, about her love for the Beatles and how to care for your treasured collections.
This year, Black History Month converges with the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Movement, and the nation's notable gains in equality give us much to celebrate. But equality in health and access to care continue to be areas of serious concern.
It was a time when slaves scrabbled for whatever food they could find, grow or collect from their white owners, a time when spirituals held coded messages for fugitives, a time of dangerous escapes to the North for freedom via the Underground Railroad. A Baylor University seminary has written a cookbook/history book sharing the legacy of her ancestors.
An international team of scientists has discovered that two of the world’s most devastating plagues – the plague of Justinian and the Black Death, each responsible for killing as many as half the people in Europe—were caused by distinct strains of the same pathogen, one that faded out on its own, the other leading to worldwide spread and re-emergence in the late 1800s. These findings suggest a new strain of plague could emerge again in humans in the future.
Northern Arizona University joined an international team of scientists in discovering that two of the world’s most devastating pandemics—the plague of Justinian and the Black Death—were caused by distinct strains of the same pathogen.
The Black Gospel Music Restoration Project -- a search-and-rescue mission launched by a Baylor University researcher to save little-known recordings from yesteryear's Golden Age of black gospel --will become a permanent feature of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Feb. 9 marks the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, the moment that launched the British Invasion and a transformation in international youth culture. Pop culture historian Chad Martin of the University of Indianapolis is available for interview.
In studying the differences in brain interactions between religious and non-religious subjects, researchers conclude there must be a biological basis for the evolution of religion in human societies.
Today is Three Kings Day or the Feast of the Epiphany, a festive tradition in Spain, Puerto Rico and many Latin American countries. This carved and painted wood artwork, which depicts the three kings, is at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
History professor Moira Maguire has specialized knowledge in questionable Irish adoption practices in the early to mid-20th century, as highlighted in the current popular film, "Philomena."
Friday, Nov. 22, 2013, marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Two S&T historians and a political scientist have studied the 35th president and are available to share their perspectives.
A new book published this fall commemorates the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination by examining the so-called news-leak controversy – one of the lesser-known mysteries surrounding President Kennedy’s death.