Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photos by Spencer Platt/Getty Images News Photo illustration by Lisa Larson-Walker. Photos by Spencer Platt/Getty Images News,Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images.

What would America be without dessert? It would be puritanical. It would be boring. It would be healthier, probably. Thankfully for our collective culture, if not our blood sugar levels, America is a ...

First page from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Courtesy of the British Library This document supplements Episode 2 of the History of American ...

In 1996, the New Yorker published “Hating Hillary,” Henry Louis Gates’ reported piece on the widespread animosity for the then–first lady. “Like horse-racing, Hillary-hating has become one of those ...

When John Travolta called Idina Menzel "Adele Dazeem" at the Oscars, he created a new standard for superstardom: You're no one until you've had your name mangled by a confused, squinting John Travolta ...

The button—with its self-contained roundness and infinite variability—has a quiet perfection to it. Running a cascade of buttons through your fingers feels satisfyingly heavy, like coins or candy; ...

Wikimedia Commons/White House Historical Association It’s a familiar chapter in our history, part of the triumphant narrative of westward expansion: In 1803, the United States bought a massive chunk ...

Click the image below to enlarge. For the interactive map, see the desktop site. Click an illustration to learn more. X Share | Tweet Interactive by Chris Kirk Alabama Meatloaf Yes, Alabama, I know ...

Citizen Kane’s Xanadu fell into disrepair before it was ever finished. Hogwarts is now a tourist trap in Florida. Even Eloise’s quarters at the Plaza Hotel have recently been relocated to Brooklyn. Of ...

Photo by Maddy Crowell I thought a bottle of red wine would be an appropriate gift to bring to utopia. It was June in Pondicherry, a sleepy beach town off the Bay of Bengal characterized by its ...

Welcome to Slate’s celebration of all the things that went right this year! Good news is hard to find. One of journalism’s most important jobs is to call out what’s wrong with the world so we know ...