A high school student in California holds a sign in protest of her school district’s ban on critical race theory curriculum.
Watchara Phomicinda/The Press-Enterprise via Getty Images
There have been numerous efforts to limit students’ access to books and curricula about certain historical and societal topics. But history itself shows democracy suffers when people are uninformed.
Artist’s impression of the signing of te Tiriti o Waitangi in 1840.
Getty Images
The story some histories tell about the 1840 agreement between Māori and the British Crown may be popular and even comforting. But they are also incomplete – and even unhelpful.
Test scores for history began their decline about a decade ago.
Don Mason via Getty Images
A historian of education policy says the dramatic drop in history test scores among the nation’s eighth graders was a predictable result.
India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest as Queen Charlotte and King George.
Courtesy of Netflix
There are many areas in the show where historical fact is sacrificed on the altar of artistic license, but glimmers of the real Queen Charlotte shine through.
An artist’s depiction of the temple at La Chapelle-des-Fougeretz as it would have looked in the first century AD.
Marie Millet, INRAP
There may have been a main god or goddess at many temple sites, but there was a clear tendency to worship a range of deities.
Adele James in Netflix’s Queen Cleopatra.
Courtesy of Netflix
The modern soundtrack and dialogue feels far more anachronistic and intrusive than the diverse casting.
King Charles III during the State Opening of Parliament, May 2022.
PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo
The coronation oath speaks to the entire nation, but also broadcasts a global message of what the United Kingdom stands for.
Netflix
Queen Charlotte captured viewers’ attention in the Netflix series Bridgerton as the snuff-sniffing, gossip-garnering, biracial wife of the “mad king” George III.
Richborough Roman Fort with the newly reconstructed gateway.
Courtesy of English Heritage
The gate has been built on the site of an actual Roman gateway, thought to date to the invasion of Britain in AD 43.
A handwritten note painted on the site of a mass grave of up to 800 children on the site of the former Mother and Baby home in Tuam, Ireland, June 2014.
Aidan Crawley/EPA
The voices of survivors are a valuable counterbalance to those who seek simplistic solutions to complex problems in child protection.
The Stone of Scone.
Duncan Bryceland / Alamy Stock Photo
The return of the Stone of Scone to Westminster has proven controversial.
Researchers have uncovered the likely genesis of the yeast used to make lager.
DavidedeAngelini / Shutterstock
Little-known documents and scientific detective work helped pinpoint the origin of lager.
Skrypnykov Dmytro/Shutterstock
Breaking the taboo: the fascinating history of menstrual products.
The ready availability of clay pipes meant that they were sometimes used for other activities other than smoking.
Ashmolean Museum
A pipe in the hand could end or save a life.
Irish actor Paul Mescal sporting a mullet in 2023.
Caroline Brehman/EPA
In the 17th century, the mullet was written about with imperial and racist overtones.
A mural to Shakespeare in London.
Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
In the late 16th century, new mathematical concepts were transforming perceptions of the world. Shakespeare’s plays helped audiences to process these changes.
Shakespeare’s First Folio was the first published work to include Macbeth.
Matt Riches/Unsplash
Without the First Folio, the canon of Shakespeare’s plays would have decisively shifted.
Moro’s bullet-riddled body lays in the boot of a car in Via Caetani, in central Rome, on 9 May 1978.
UPI/AFP
Marco Bellochio’s series is the latest interpretation of a murder that continues to haunt Italy.
Twitter/ Wikimedia
There is a long history of tossing food at politicians and other controversial figures as a deliciously defiant symbol of objection to their politics and presence in public spaces.
Mystic Meg in a promotional image.
Victor Watts/Alamy Stock Photo
Critics of superstition have often painted openness to magical interpretations as weakness or moral failing.