There’s still a lingering perception that Victorians were stuffy to the point of being wholly out of touch with their own bodies—as though they were like porcelain dolls from the era, just cloth stuffed with horsehair south of the neck. The recently released history book Victorians Undone makes a fascinating…
Good news for the legacy of a saintly woman: On Thursday, the 100th anniversary of her death (June 7, 1918), Julia Greeley will be the first person entombed at Denver’s Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.
It’s 2018 and people are still (understandably) obsessed with Frida Kahlo. Google knows this, and has worked with 33 museums from seven countries to arrange an insane collection of hundreds of pieces of her art, including some that had never been digitized before, and made them available online.
Several never-before-seen love letters between Marcel Proust and the Venezuelan-French composer Reynaldo Hahn will be up for auction in Paris this week.
The Duchess of Sussex (!!!) made feminist waves this weekend by walking herself down the aisle at a royal wedding, a feat that should not be particularly newsworthy in 2018, but in Royal Family years it’s still approximately 1903, so. Decades before #AisleGate, though, tween Meghan Markle fought a slightly smaller,…
Anne Frank’s diary was particularly powerful in that she wrote about the mundanities of her life as a typical teenager—crushes and all—even as the encroaching threat of Jewish genocide loomed over her family. And now researchers have uncovered that this typical teenager wasn’t beyond a good dirty joke.
It’s official: Coney Island, the 2.7 mile stretch of Brooklyn broadwalk beloved by New Yorkers and tourists alike, is now a NYC landmark. On it’s 95th anniversary Tuesday morning (it opened on May 15, 1923), the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously voted for the iconic site to be granted landmark…
The spectacle of a royal wedding may seem archaic, even to those who aren’t dyed-in-the-wool anti-monarchists. But many aspects of the show we know today are a relatively recent invention. If we lived in the 15th century, say, the marital prospects of the monarch and their children really would have mattered to our…
One of the cardinal rules of writing is never to read the comments. For every thoughtful critic, there are three more who didn’t read past the headline; for every valid call-out, there are five more calling the writer an “evil, bitter, barren, ugly, POS Liberal hag.” But it appears no one warned young Truman Capote…
Join me in a slow clap for olden time literality—according to a new report from Atlas Obscura, in 1846, an entire century before rock and roll was even a twinkle in Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s eye—The Original Monstre Rock Band made headlines in England for their musicianship crafted with actual rocks “hewn from a…
In a disappointing turn of events, despite speculation, King Tut’s tomb appears to have no secret chambers that might or might not lead to another important Egyptian’s magnificent final resting place, which means that we’re definitely not going to swing open the door to find his stepmother Nefertiti.
Judith Leiber, the creator of iconic, whimsical bejeweled handbags beloved by first ladies, socialites, and Hollywood stars walking the red carpet, has died at 97.
It’s one of the first questions about any major royal appearance or event, with entire websites dedicated to answering it as quickly as possible: But what was she wearing?
London has finally added a woman—suffragist Millicent Fawcett—to the collection of leaders commemorated with statues in Parliament Square, and the unveiling was today. She looks extremely done with everybody’s shit.
“I have always believed from the beginning that shoes tell a story more than covering your feet,” said shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, introducing members of the press to the New York Historical Society’s latest exhibit. “Walk This Way” bears his belief out, offering a fascinating tour through history via women’s…
I didn’t intend to start my day by crying at my desk (which is also my kitchen table—I’m working from home), but dammit, here we are. A brand new exhibit at a museum in Danville, Iowa contains copies of the only letters Anne Frank and her sister Margot wrote to their American pen pals, two school-age girls named…
A couple of amateur archeologists—one of them a 13-year-old—wielding metal detectors have found a cache of treasure from the 900s (you read that right) that once belonged to a “King Bluetooth.” This is a perfect story, featuring not just a teen stumbling upon ancient loot, but also a great new insult to lob at any…
Canada is honoring a prolific commercial illustrator responsible for the covers of more than 500 Harlequin romance novels—specifically, with a postage stamp.
Apparently participants on both sides of the English Civil War were extremely concerned about the prospect of women dressing as men and going into battle. (Or following the army as well disguised sex workers.) And a few women actually did it.
The legendary Zsa Zsa Gabor died in 2016, and now a Beverley Hills auction house is dispersing her things into the wider world. Here is your precious chance to own her Saks Fifth Avenue charge card. Let’s shop the online listings together, shall we?
