History

By Made by History / Produced by Olivia B. Waxman

To celebrate the aesthetic of Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department, Swifties are snatching up centuries old French notarial documents, of all things, to use in scrapbooks, memory-boards, and more. But, as Julie Hardwick and Amanda E. Herbert explain in Made by History, while fans love these documents for their calligraphy and the way they conjure up a bygone era, they also served an integral legal function in French life. They could make a marriage contract or a will official, for example. And they could also provide ordinary people — including vulnerable, marginalized ones — with a way to make valid legal claims. Sometimes those extended to profound things: a will that freed an enslaved person, an agreement by unmarried people on how to handle an unexpected pregnancy. Failing to acknowledge the deeper meaning of such documents, and reducing them instead to mere backdrops for our own memories, Hardwick and Herbert argue, risks exposing a widespread casualness about the past that is problematic — and one Swift herself warns about.

HISTORY ON TIME.COM

Why Colleges Don't Know What to Do About Campus Protests

By Jack Hodgson / Made by History

Despite frequent litigation throughout the last century, U.S. courts have created a blurry line that leaves university administrators in an impossible situation—one that won’t change until the courts and politicians settle on which priority is more important: free speech or order on campus.

Arizona’s Abortion Ban Never Represented the Will of the People—Even in 1864

By Katherine Benton-Cohen / Made by History

Legislators look likely to repeal a near-total abortion ban enacted by a deeply unrepresentative territorial legislature.

Regulation of Pelvic Exams Is Long Overdue

By Wendy Kline / Made by History

New guidelines aim to correct a historic wrong.

How Hitler Used Democracy to Take Power

By Timothy Ryback

The vital lesson of how Adolf Hitler took advantage of democracy to become a dictator.

Column: The Only Answer to the Country's Troubles

By Eddie S. Glaude Jr.

Eddie Glaude Jr. reflects on the central tension in American life today.

The Man Who Made Ronald Reagan ‘See Red’ Is Still in Power

By Time

Nicaragua once preoccupied the U.S. public. Forty years later, few Americans noticed the return to power of Daniel Ortega.

The U.S. Must Win the Quantum Computing Race. History Shows How to Do It

By Brandon Kirk Williams / Made by History

The past provides a guide for how to win a coming computing revolution that the U.S. can't afford to lose.

Puerto Rico Is Voting for Its Future

By Jorell Meléndez-Badillo / Made by History

Puerto Ricans select delegates this week for the RNC and DNC. Later this year, elections here could have an even bigger impact.

What Was Revealed When British Officials Calculated How Much a Colonial Subject’s Life Was Worth

By Hardeep Dhillon / Made by History

Although British officials paid compensation after the 1919 massacre at Jallianwalla Bagh, they paid far less to Indian families than Europeans.

FROM THE TIME VAULT

This week in 1973: Israel’s 25th anniversary


Jack Davis
The April 30, 1973, cover of TIME

“The new people of Israel, like the old, are quite prepared to face a hostile world all by themselves. One factor that unites the generations is a profound conviction—to some, perhaps, a substitute for religious faith—that their nation will survive, no matter what. Survival is the Jewish sacrament. Even the secular-minded are compelled to regard Jewish survival through [millennia] of repeated exodus and holocaust as one of history's miracles. Israel is that miracle's latest and perhaps most remarkable incarnation…Surrounded by hostile nations that challenged it to survive, Israel during the first 25 years had no choice but to live by and with violence.”

This week in 1998: Viagra


Anita Kunz
The May 4, 1998, cover of TIME

“Besides its phony name, funny shape and unappetizing color, what's not to like about Viagra, the new pill that conquers impotence? Could there be a product more tailored to the easy-solution-loving, sexually insecure American psyche than this one? The drug, manufactured by Pfizer, went on sale three weeks ago…Already, a kind of Viagra connoisseurship is beginning to take hold. ‘The hundreds are absolutely incredible,’ says a very satisfied user, referring to the drug's 100-mg maximum-strength dosage, and the effect lasts through the following morning.’ What else can one say but Vrooom! Cheap gas, strong economy, erection pills--what a country! What a time to be alive!”

This week in 2007: Virginia Tech shooting


SOME OF THE VICTIMS OF THE APRIL 16 MASS SHOOTING ON THE VIRGINIA TECH CAMPUS
The April 30, 2007, cover of TIME

“The winds were April cruel in Blacksburg on Monday: too strong for helicopters to evacuate the most badly wounded that morning, too strong for candles that night. The vigils would have to wait; the students grieved in the privacy of their dorms. The stately, sprawling campus of Virginia Tech was littered with broken branches; yellow police tape ribboned through a tree as if the gusts had tied it there, mourning those who would not be coming back. The locals said the winds rose to carry the angels down so they could take the children home.”