I'm the chief digital writer for the Columbia Journalism Review
From the Smithsonian: "The Lizzie Borden murder case is one of the most famous in American criminal history. New England’s major crime of the Gilded Age, its barbarity captivated the national press. And the suspected killer was immortalized by an eerie rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an ax and
From the City of Chowchilla: "On July 15, 1976, a busload of children aged 5 to 14 and their school bus driver, Ed Ray were abducted on a country road in Madera County at about 4 p.m. on their way back from a swim outing. The bus was
From The Economist: "Hansen’s disease, better known as leprosy, is a tropical malady that is rare in America. In 2020, just 159 cases were reported. Only 5% of people seem to be susceptible to infection. Because it is so rare, Americans seldom think about leprosy, and many clinicians
From Medium: "Songwriter, producer, and McCann Erickson executive Roquel “Billy” Davis, conceived and co-wrote “I’d Like To Buy the World A Coke” for that famous 1971 campaign. Davis’s biography is every inch as remarkable as the fictional Don Draper or any other character from Mad Men. Born
From the Swiss National Museum: "In the middle of the First World War, diplomats in Switzerland, Austria and the Vatican were trying to resolve the Roman question. The issue, as the representative of the Holy See in Bern wrote to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Austria in 1916,
From Interconnected: "Thirty years ago, a company called Etak released the first commercially available computerized navigation system for automobiles. Spearheaded by an engineer named Stan Honey and bankrolled by Nolan Bushnell, the cofounder of Atari, the company’s Navigator was ahead of its time. Benj Edwards, a technology historian,
From The Guardian: "A woman who punched a crocodile in the snout to save her sister is among the recipients of bravery awards included on the king’s first civilian gallantry list. Georgia Laurie attacked the reptile when it went for her twin, Melissa, dragging her underwater while they
From The Cut: "Fifty miles northwest of New York City is a town built as a kind of experiment: an attempt to insulate a religious community from the vagaries of time and assimilation. There, the women serve Sabbath meals that would not be out of place in 19th-century Eastern
From Popular Science: "When Concetta Antico looks at a leaf, she sees much more than just green. “Around the edge I’ll see orange or red or purple in the shadow; you might see dark green but I’ll see violet, turquoise, blue,” she said. “It’s like a
From The Smithsonian: "An upcoming show at Galerie Canesso features two paintings by a mysterious artist who was active in northern Italy in the 1600s. The painter’s oil canvases depict early iterations of the stiff blue fabric beloved today, as worn by Italian peasants. According to a statement,
From MessyNessyChic: "When we think of Parisian café culture, we might think of the literary crowd that congregated at the Café de Flore with Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre in the 1950s. Who would have thought that we owe it all to an industrious community of coal-shovelling
From the New York Times: "Why did Beethoven go deaf? A cottage industry of fans and experts has debated various theories. Was it Paget’s disease of bone, which in the skull can affect hearing? Did irritable bowel syndrome cause his gastrointestinal problems? Or might he have had syphilis,