One of the most common reactions during a crisis is the urge to help others. Here a health-care worker watches as the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are delivered to a long-term care facility in Montréal.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
While the world is dealing with the biggest health emergency in more than a century, the way people have reacted to the crisis is familiar and predictable.
Giant of literary fiction: John le Carré was both influenced by, and influential on, Britain’s secret services.
Matt Crossick/PA Wire/PA Images
Le Carré drew on his own experience to change public perceptions of the world of spying.
Several countries are developing microwave weapons, like this U.S. Air Force system designed to knock down drones by frying their electronics.
AFRL Directed Energy Directorate
High-power microwave weapons are useful for disabling electronics. A new report says they ‘plausibly explain’ some ailments suffered by US diplomats and CIA agents in Cuba, China and other countries.
While we might not think of the 1950s housewife as taking an active interest in Cold War politics, a close reading of the Weekly shows its female readers were encouraged to join in the discussion.
This man visited the Soviet embassy in Mexico City while Lee Harvey Oswald was in Mexico in 1963. Officials thought it might be Oswald.
Corbis via Getty Images
Gonzalo Soltero, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM)
In 1967 a Mexican reporter told the CIA he had met Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico City just before the JFK assassination. New research and recently declassified intelligence pokes a hole in his story.
A STS-134 crew member on the space shuttle Endeavour took this photo of the ISS after the station and shuttle began their separation.
NASA
Humans have been living on the International Space Station for two full decades. So what comes next for this ailing technology, and what does it mean for future International ventures in space?
It is tempting to look back to the Cold War to make sense of current US-China relations. But we are in unchartered waters — and need a better understanding where this competition is heading.
Decaying monument to the ‘people’s uprising against fascism’ at Petrova Gora in Croatia.
Ilija Ascic via Shutterstock
The author’s novels, famous for their bleakly sociopathic depiction of American culture, testify to the insanity and abusiveness that surround us.
Winston Churchill giving his final address, during the 1945 election campaign, at Walthamstow Stadium, East London.
Wikipedia, the collections of the Imperial War Museums
Klaus W. Larres, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Even a highly popular and respected leader can lose an election, writes a historian – especially if they don’t have a plan for the future. Churchill was one of them.
It’s difficult by design to identify disinformation campaign instigators and their agendas.
stevanovicigor/iStock via Getty Images
Many people who participate in disinformation campaigns are unwitting accomplices and much of the information they spread is accurate, which makes it all the harder to identify the campaigns.
In control: Vladimir Putin could remain as Russian leader until 2036.
EPA-EFE/Sergei Guneyev / Host photo agency
African policymakers should strenuously safeguard their right to choose from the widest possible range of technology options that suit their countries’ development needs.
Venezuela Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, center, greets the arrival of medical specialists and supplies from China in March.
AP Photo/Matias Delacroix
The US may want to rethink its anti-China policy as Beijing’s focus on providing international coronavirus aid and digital and health care investments seems to be working.
President John F. Kennnedy personally bid the first Peace Corps volunteers farewell.
AP Photo/William J. Smith
Wendy Melillo, American University School of Communication
The agency’s earliest ad campaigns emphasized youthful idealism, patriotism and travel opportunities. That was an easier sell than urging Americans to enlist in an anti-communist operation.
It’s not just the coronavirus that is upping the ante, but tensions over Huawei and other technologies that are threatening to create a new cold war. And Australia will be caught in the middle.
Since the Cold War, Americans have shifted from engaging in active self-rescue to passively waiting for help from a centralized, bureaucratic federal emergency response.