225 years ago today, Mozart died. We’re still not sure how.
The Magic Flute is one of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s most famous works. There’s a good chance you know the piece, but what you might not know is that Mozart finished and premiered the opera in the very...
View ArticleGrand Rapids seaman killed in Pearl Harbor honored in 1942 propaganda film
“Today is the day that will live in infamy,” in the words of President Franklin Roosevelt. This is the 75th anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor – the attack that propelled the United States...
View ArticleHistorian: From Attica to Kinross, we have a right to know what happens in...
The book Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy has been getting lots of attention by the national media and is a National Book Award finalist. The author is University...
View ArticleMSU historian helps Scorsese tell epic tale of Jesuits in Japan
Michigan State University historian Liam Brockey has spent years studying the history of Catholicism. Now, that scholarship is generating something unexpected: Oscar buzz. Brockey served as a...
View ArticleDid Van Gogh cut off his whole ear, or just his earlobe? Debate continues...
Happy 164th birthday to the man who is the personification of the "tortured artist." Vincent Van Gogh was born on this day in 1853. University of Michigan medical historian and PBS contributor Dr....
View ArticleTrump budget would cut program to preserve Michigan auto history
President Trump’s proposed budget would eliminate the federal funding for a group that works to preserve Michigan’s automotive history. The MotorCities National Heritage Area covers 16 counties and...
View ArticleAmerica's obsession with specialty, organic foods linked to widening class...
Grocery store shelves, restaurant menus and cookbooks are a lot different in 2017 than they were 30 or 40 years ago. Americans tend to pay a lot more attention to the food we eat and how it's prepared....
View ArticleThe racist history of Albert Cobo, and the complicated push to rid Detroit of...
The Cobo Convention Center in Detroit has hired a company to dive into the possibility of selling the center's naming rights. Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley calls it "incidental good news" that...
View ArticleHow Eugene O’Neill’s youthful battle with tuberculosis inspired many of his...
One of America's greatest playwrights was born 129 years ago this day. Eugene O'Neill was a prolific writer whose works earned him four Pulitzers and a Nobel Prize. And it was his youthful battle with...
View ArticleGrand Valley brings WW2-era letters back to life in new storytelling project
One way to learn history is through textbooks and lectures. Another is through the words and handwriting of the people from our past. That’s right: letters, something today’s college students don’t see...
View ArticleHow a tiny Michigan town became the Magic Capital of the World
The word “magic” may conjure images of witches and wizards casting spells in a bygone era, long before the rise of science and modern civilization. However, there is a spot in Michigan where magic...
View ArticleWhen Americans responded to a devastating explosion in Halifax, this man...
The University of Michigan hockey team started its season last week. But the program started 94 years ago. It was a surprising byproduct of the worst man-made explosion to that point, and of a young...
View ArticleA bitter brotherly feud, and how Kellogg's Corn Flakes reimagined American...
A chirpy, cheery jingle from the 1960s was part of a massive advertising effort that helped Kellogg’s Corn Flakes become amazingly popular. “ Kellogg’s best to you ” meant breakfast to countless...
View ArticleDetroit’s forgotten history of slavery detailed in new book
There are accepted historical “facts” which do not hold up to closer scrutiny. One of those is that slavery was something that happened in the South, not the North. That is simply wrong. A new book...
View ArticleWas it typhoid? Crohn’s? 156-year-old mystery surrounds Prince Albert’s death
156 years ago this day, a husband died. His grieving wife wore black from that day until her own death 40 years later. That is the story of Britain's Queen Victoria and her husband, the Prince Consort...
View ArticleYou can thank (or scorn) this man for the birth of eugenics
This week marks the 196th birthday of someone who occupies a place of dishonor in the annals of science. Sir Francis Galton was born this week in 1822. He was interested in a wide range of fields:...
View ArticleMichigan artist’s “Strange Fruit” quilt remembers the thousands lost to...
For six years now, the Detroit Unity Temple has held a quilt exhibit in February. Many of the quilts – but not all – are tributes to African-American history. This year a quilt that’s getting a lot of...
View ArticleRemembering the forgotten ophthalmologist who discovered local anesthesia
Imagine going to the dentist and needing a filling, but there’s nothing to numb you up. There’s no novocaine. Just drilling. Thankfully, we have local anesthesia for dental work and eye surgery. For...
View ArticleHow one journalist changed the way America treated people with mental illness
This past Saturday was the 154th birthday of Nellie Bly, one of the first (if not the first) American investigative journalists. Her willingness to be checked into the New York City Women's Insane...
View ArticleConservative politicians aim to scrub climate change, LGBTQ history from...
Gay rights, Roe v. Wade , climate change and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These are just a few of the references that state Senator Patrick Colbeck and a...
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