August 19, 2025
August 05, 2013
On the high seas, the doldrums are a place where ships linger, unable to push forward through the too-calm sea. In literature, doldrums become synonymous with a particular kind of inert malaise.
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August 02, 2013
Leni Riefenstahl’s final film was a wordless, undersea documentary—and her only film after the fall of the Nazi regime.
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July 28, 2013
During the mid-twentieth century, the twin concerns of space exploration and environmentalism found a curious mascot: the space whale.
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July 14, 2013
Whalers left Nantucket and Cape Cod in droves in search of the next big catch—what of those who stayed behind?
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July 13, 2013
When Herman Melville began to write Moby Dick he was chasing his own literary white whale: Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast.
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July 03, 2013
Civil War amputations were a grisly affair; luckily, there were instruction manuals for busy or inexperienced surgeons.
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June 28, 2013
In nineteenth century New York, women flocked to shops to buy hats adorned with exotic bird feathers. Eventually, though, they started to wonder if such adornment was necessary—or ethical.
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June 18, 2013
A thirteenth-century town in France worshiped a greyhound as a saint, but the loyal dog was just one in a line of venerated pets.
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June 15, 2013
A young girl in London is mistaken for a troglodyte by taxonomist Carl Linneaus, as he maps out the human species.
Read More2023:
Fitness instructor carves his girlfriend’s name into the Colosseum.
c. 1850:
Thompson of Sunderland makes his mark on Pompey’s pillar.
2023:
Writers on strike search for romance at the picket line.
c. 1945:
Young communists engage in party matchmaking.