History & Society

History & Society

Trace how culture, power, and ideas shape societies across time.

ideal night sy conditions
All stars, eventually, run out of fuel and die. Given all the stars we can see and the vast distance to them, are any of them already dead?
A stoic man with a beard in a black and white photo.
Stoicism is popular today but often misunderstood and misapplied. In fact, a naive interpretation of Stoicism is damaging to your well-being.
a picture of a man with a hat and a tarot card.
The debate goes back at least 400 years.
John Templeton Foundation
Lunar footprints.
Over 50 years since humans last walked on the Moon, astronaut footprints and rover tracks are still visible. But they won't last forever.
A monochromatic image capturing a silver ring.
With U.S. infrastructure crumbling, an honor oath and iron ring remind engineers of their profession's ethical weight.
A drawing using the loci method depicting a tunnel with variably colored pillars.
Modern memory athletes use this ancient technique to memorize thousands of digits of pi.
cosmic inflation
Today, our observable Universe extends for 46 billion light-years in all directions. But early on in our history, things were much smaller.
young exoplanetary system PDS 70
The giant impact theory suggests our Moon was formed from proto-Earth getting a Mars-sized strike. An exoplanet system shows it's plausible.
The world set free by Rachel Wells, inspired by Oppenheimer.
Science fiction met nuclear fission when Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd pondered the explosive potential of nuclear energy.
JADES galaxies
For many years, cosmologists have claimed the Universe is 13.8 billion years old. A new paper says no, it's 26.7 billion. How do we decide?
Hybrid animals emerge when two different species from the same family reproduce. For many years, the kunga’s lineage was just another genetic mystery. 
a painting depicting an angel and a woman showing fear while holding a scythe.
“It is healthy and normal to be afraid of death."
A portrayal of a bespectacled man with a serpent inspired by Carl Jung's theories.
Aiming to unlock the secrets of his unconscious mind, Jung experimented with intensive daydreaming.
Three women, embodying the male hunter myth, standing confidently on a rock and armed with spears.
In numerous cultures worldwide, women were just as involved in bringing home the prehistoric bacon as their male counterparts.
three scuba divers in the water.
The divers spend their waking hours either under hundreds of feet of water on the ocean floor or squeezed into an area the size of a restaurant booth.