Activists in Newark, N.J., offer tours that teach visitors about the city’s legacy of industrial pollution and environmental racism.
Charles Rotkin/Corbis via Getty Images
Grieving the queen’s passing can be different to grieving the loss of someone we were close to. It’s also complicated by politics, colonialism and the contest about who she really was.
Muslim refugees sit on the roof of an overcrowded coach railway train near New Delhi, trying to leave India after the 1947 Partition.
AP Photo
On the 75th anniversary of India’s partition, scholars from the US, Canada, France, UK and Australia write about their favorite book or film that best explains the trauma of a violent division.
A group of schoolgirls in Czyzew, Poland, before the Holocaust.
Czyżew Yizkor Book by Shimon Kanc/New York Public Library
Yom HaShoah is a day to commemorate the murder of 6 million Jews – but also their lives. Yizker bikher books lovingly document Jewish communities across Europe.
America’s political leaders rushed the nation into war just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, just like ancient Greeks and Romans did in response to similar traumatic events.
David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images
Ancient Athenians and Romans also let shared mass tragedies propel justifications for going to war – even when it wasn’t clear what that violence would solve.
People are warned that what they post on the internet will live forever. But that’s not really the case.
3alexd/E+ via Getty Images
Portions of the internet disappear every day. Preservation of this historical record requires a proactive approach by archivists and everyday citizens.
Workers lower a a statue of Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, onto a truck as a crowd watches in Kingston, Ont., June 18, 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg
Sean Donahue, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
A global pandemic might be at the forefront of everyone’s minds. But we can’t assume that future threats will get the attention they deserve from people living in an information-saturated world.
An Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man is arrested by Israeli security forces for resisting efforts to shut down a synagogue in the Me’a She’arim neighborhood in Jerusalem, April 17, 2020.
AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images
Joyce Dalsheim, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
Persecution is central to Jewish collective memory. So when armed police entered ultra-Orthodox areas of Jerusalem to close synagogues due to COVID-19, some residents reacted with fear and suspicion.
Memory can serve as a heavy reminder of the past. Indigenous people gather in Shubenacadie, N.S., in June 2008 to remember the residents of a former residential school and the abuses they suffered.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Mike Dembeck
Over the past 15 years, community groups in a rundown inner-city district have created public murals as part of a successful process of reversing decades of stagnation.
Natural selection has shaped many different animal groups, from V-like formations of bird flocks to circular mills of schooling fish. These shapes are the result of millions of years of evolution. Animals…
Selma director and co-writer Ava DuVernay has crafted a new and important vision of an oft-examined era in our nation’s history.
Stanley Wolfson/Library of Congress
Hollywood films that depict American history deeply influence our sense of national identity. Films that portray Civil Rights and Black Freedom history are particularly important. Beyond entertaining moviegoers…
Sharing stories around the dinner table fosters greater self-esteem and resilience in young people.
Howard Chalkley
Families and friends share memories all the time; “You’ll never guess…”, “How was your day?”, and “Do you remember when…” are rich daily fodder. Sharing memories is not only a good way to debrief and reminisce…
Hail in summer - not so rare.
@SCRainey2997/Twitter
Hail, heavy rain, lightning and flash flooding – not necessarily typical summer weather in southeast England. But the recent unexpected deluge saw homes evacuated, stations flooded, and road and rail services…