Are the Tokyo Olympics Cursed?

Canceled in 1940 and Postponed for 2020, Japan’s Bad Luck Highlights a Bigger Problem Plaguing the Games: Outsized Ambition and Subpar Leadership

This spring, as the coronavirus pandemic flared across the globe, pressure mounted on Olympics organizers to cancel or postpone the Tokyo 2020 Games. At first, the International Olympic Committee, the group of 100 members that oversees the Olympics, sashayed ahead with its plans with seeming nonchalance. As late as March, IOC President Thomas Bach brayed that members hadn’t so much as uttered the words “postponement” or “cancellation.”

But pressure from athletes and national sport bodies finally forced Bach’s hand. Olympians—including big-name stars like U.S. decathlete Ashton Eaton, reigning Olympic pole …

When Americans Fell in Love With the Ideal of ‘One World’ | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

When Americans Fell in Love With the Ideal of ‘One World’

In 1943, Failed Presidential Candidate Wendell Willkie Advanced a Strikingly Anti-Racist, Anti-Colonial Plan to Bring the Planet Together

What do you think of when you think of the phrase “one world?” Chances are it sounds like a vague gesture of unity or worldly inclusivity, like a stock phrase …

The Black Nurses Who Were Forced to Care for German Prisoners of War

Prohibited From Tending to White GIs, the Women Felt Betrayed by the Country They Sought to Serve

On the summer afternoon in 1944 that 23-year-old Elinor Powell walked into the Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Phoenix, it never occurred to her that she would be refused service. …

How the U.S. Military Brought Soul Food to the World

After Serving Overseas, Black Servicemen Opened Joints That Dished up Chitlins, Cornbread, and Fried Chicken

Soul food ambassadors: probably not who comes to mind when you think of the African Americans who have served overseas in the U.S. armed forces. Yet no other group of …

How the Industrial Age Fuels Our Belief in UFOs

Fears of Zeppelins, Rockets, and Drones Have Replaced the "Celestial Wonders" of Ancient Times

In 1896, newspapers throughout the United States began reporting accounts of mysterious airships flying overhead. Descriptions varied, but witnesses frequently invoked the century’s great technological achievements. Some sources reported dirigibles …

The Reporter Who Helped Persuade FDR to Tell the Truth About War

After Witnessing the Bloody Struggle with Japan, Robert Sherrod Thought the Public Should Face the 'Cruel' Facts

Betio, part of the Tarawa Atoll, is a small, bird-shaped island along the equator in the central Pacific. Early in the morning on November 20, 1943, elements of the Second …