Visual Arts Story Briefs

What does it mean when we say "art is in the eye of the beholder?" How have artists' subjects changed over the centuries? This collection features diverse art forms (from ancient mosaics to modern cubism).

"We Shall Overcome" became the rally cry of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.

During the attack on Pearl Harbor, the USS West Virginia was badly damaged.

Although the Essex was the first-known ship to be fatally attacked by a whale, at least three more vessels experienced a similar fate in the ensuing y...

Whaling vessels carried smaller boats which the crew used to hunt and capture whales.

Using a block and tackle to get a sperm whale's head on board ship, crewmen remove whale oil (spermaceti) from the sperm whale's case.

Money in the bank doesn't always mean the same thing to people. Stone money is stored outside, not in a locked bank vault, on the Micronesian island o...

When Lt. Col Tuan refused to teach saboteurs how to drive tanks, during the Vietnam War, those saboteurs murdered Tuan, then machine-gunned his wife, ...

The war for independence was finally over, but a cash-strapped Congress had, for years, failed to pay the Continental Armys officers and soldiers. How...

This image illustrated an article, published in 1863, addressing the deplorable conditions in the Bethnal Green section of London, England.

James Madison, America's 4th President, was also the drafter of the U.S. Constitution and the country's Bill of Rights.

Wilhelm Conrad (Konrad) Roentgen (1845-1923) and his wife (Anna Bertha Roentgen) lived upstairs from the Physics Institute at the University of Wurzbu...

Elected in 1840, William Henry Harrison is sworn-in as America's 9th President in March of 1841. He dies in office the next month.

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