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Salem's complicated journey from witch trials to witch tourism

Oct 27, 2022
In the 1690s, women were hanged in Salem, Massachusetts on suspicion of witchcraft. Now, it's a witchy Mecca for tourists.
Hundreds of thousands of people descend on Salem during the Halloween season.
Sarah Leeson

The Federal Reserve’s 12 districts reflect an economy that no longer exists

Sep 21, 2022
The locations of the regional banks made sense for the economy of 1913. Populations and industries have shifted since then.
High-profile officials in the Federal Reserve System have offered differing attitudes toward future rate hikes following data that suggest a recent moderating of inflation.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Getty Images helps historically Black colleges digitize and archive their photographs

Aug 9, 2022
The partnership is meant to help preserve important historical records of Black Americans' lives.
Archivist Andre Vann of North Carolina Central University handles a 1964 photo of the homecoming queen and her attendants, to be included in the HBCU Getty Images collection.
Leoneda Inge

How the typewriter propelled women into the office

Nov 24, 2021
Typewriters were "crucial" to the rise of women's workforce participation in the 20th century, says economic historian Elyce Rotella.
Typewriters were "crucial" to the rise of women's workforce participation in the 20th century, says economic historian Elyce Rotella.
Keystone/Getty Images

Did department stores train people to be difficult customers?

Aug 13, 2021
Amanda Mull, a staff writer at The Atlantic, argues that department stores had a hand in building class consciousness.
Customers shop at Macys department store in New York on Black Friday, Nov. 27, 2020.
Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty Images
Trump supporters gather at the U.S. Capitol prior to Wednesday's insurrection. “We have often lost sight of the fact that our biggest and most successful export is not capitalism, but is democracy,” said Kathleen Day, an expert on financial crises.
Oivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

How the Spanish flu contributed to the rise of Hollywood

Nov 19, 2020
The 1918 pandemic helped shift the film industry’s center of power. Could the coronavirus pandemic do the same?
A scene from the 1923 film "The Ten Commandments," one of the films that helped establish Southern California as the center of the film industry in the years following the pandemic of 1918.
Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

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Soap saves countless lives every year. Here's how it was invented

May 25, 2020
Cody Cassidy, author of "Who Ate the First Oyster?" said the inventor of soap had no idea about its life-saving potential.
More soap use can save lives, the World Health Organization says.
Mike Coppola/Getty Images

The campaign finance of women's suffrage

Jun 4, 2019
Behind the political struggle was a well-financed lobbying operation.
3rd May 1913:  Grand Marshal Inez Milholland Boissevain (1886 - 1916) leads a parade of 30,000 representives of the various Women's Suffrage associations through New York City.
Paul Thompson/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images