Audrey Erickson, a member of the Arthur Murray Girls, a professional women's baseball team, USA, 1953.

Women Are Reclaiming Their Place in Baseball

Momentum continues to build in the movement to put women back where they belong: on the baseball diamond.
Crowd entering the stadium at the 1896 Olympic marathon

The Invention of the Marathon

The Hellenic inspiration for the 26.2-mile races which draw over a million runners yearly worldwide had nothing to do with sport—but everything to do with war.
Muhammad Ali and George Foreman boxing in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Remembering the Rumble in the Jungle

The 1974 Rumble in the Jungle was freighted with symbolism regarding American racial politics and the pan-African struggle in the context of the Cold War.
The game of Jai-Alai and the hall, Havana, Cuba

Hi, Jai Alai

Once popular across the United States, jai alai lives on in American sport culture mostly thanks to its history as a legal option for gambling.
Cricket in the United States, 1920

Endangered: North American Cricket

Cricket was played and cheered in the United States and Canada in the nineteenth century. Why did it fall out of favor with sports fans?
Jack Trice with his team.

The Death of Jack Trice

On October 6, 1923, Iowa State tackle Jack Trice lined up for the second half of a college football game. No one’s sure what happened in that third quarter.
An illustration showing fencing positions, 1610

The Fencing Moral Panic of Elizabethan London

In Elizabethan England, it seemed like everyone was carrying a sharpened object with the intent to inflict damage.
The spartan mother by Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, 1770

Why Some Spartan Women Had Two Husbands

In ancient Sparta, it was accepted practice for more women to marry and have children by more than one man.
A railroad worker enjoys a sandwich and bottle of milk during his lunch break, circa 1950

Mother’s—and Others’—Milk

Said to bestow strength and beauty, to purify body and soul, and to yield success and happiness, milk’s image is as adulterated as the liquid itself.
A sports page from the Pittsburgh Courier

How the Black Press Helped Integrate Baseball

In the 1930s and ’40s, Black newspapers like the Pittsburgh Courier used their platform to help break the sport’s color line.