In his 1919 manual for screenwriters, Ten Million Photoplay Plots, Wycliff Aber Hill provided this taxonomy of possible types of dramatic "situations," first running them down in outline form, then ...

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 ...

The play’s the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King. — Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2 1. Foul Deeds Will Rise Is it possible to kill 1 million people and then forget about it? Or if it has ...

The classic American emergency exit sign—the bold red letters spelling out E-X-I-T—seems at first glance like an unimpeachable bit of sign design. The contrast between the letters and the background ...

The Vault is Slate’s history blog. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @slatevault, and find us on Tumblr. Find out more about what this space is all about here. In a 1785 letter to the Marquis ...

Daniel Engber is a columnist for Slate. The fourth-graders were unanimous: Quicksand doesn't scare them, not one bit. If you're a 9- or 10-year-old at the P.S. 29 elementary school in Brooklyn, N.Y., ...

Is genetically engineered food dangerous? Many people seem to think it is. In the past five years, companies have submitted more than 27,000 products to the Non-GMO Project, which certifies goods that ...

U.S. soldiers patrol a checkpoint southeast of Baghdad on Sept. 6, 2007. Photo by Carlos Barria/Reuters U.S. Army Specialist Stephanie Charboneau sat at the center of a complex trucking network in ...

The Internet, we’ve been told, is the greatest library in the history of man—immediate, boundless, constantly expanding. In practice, though, many of us experience the Internet more like history’s ...

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 ...

Photograph by Jason Kempin/Getty Images. As people were getting ready for the holiday season and its accompanying waist expansion late last year, Dr. Mehmet Oz let viewers of his TV show in on a ...

This file photo shows an unnamed detainee inGuantánamo Bay in 2009 Photo by John Moore/Getty Images PART ONE: ENDLESS INTERROGATIONS Mohamedou Ould Slahi voluntarily turned himself in for questioning ...