Like a steel girder, one curious relationship ran through the final decades of Gabriele D’Annunzio’s life: that with his cook, a much younger woman named Albina Becevello, about whom little is known other than her cooking.

For Alma Reville, Alfred Hitchcock’s wife and lifelong collaborator, cooking became a means of creative expression separate from her husband’s endeavors.

The elegant innovations of a new American cuisine were prepared by a man who was considered a slave.

In the seventeenth century, Christmas was not about children, it was about the adult experience of the world—and it crackled with potential danger.

Fanny Cradock, the face of the nation’s cooking for decades, was a lodestar in the foul-tasting odyssey of bad British food.

You've perhaps heard the tale of the two Kellogg brothers, but it was Ella Eaton Kellogg who had the most lasting impact on American dietary habits.

Two centuries after his death, Vincenzo Corrado’s books are still reprinted and read across the peninsula. Cafés, pizzerias, and trattorias across southern Italy bear the name “Corrado,” a word now synonymous with the glories of Italian gastronomy.

The elegant innovations of a new American cuisine were prepared by a man who was considered a slave.

The extraordinary life of a French chef whose technological innovations fed the Irish during the famine.

We’re away until January 2, but we’re reposting some of our favorite pieces from 2018. Enjoy your holiday! In 1788, a French blacksmith named Mathurin Louschart was killed in his home by a single blow to the head. The act was committed in the …

  In 1788, a French blacksmith named Mathurin Louschart was killed in his home by a single blow to the head. The act was committed in the blink of an eye, but the feud motivating it had festered for months. Earlier that year, the deeply conser…

Arthur Cravan, the Dadaist poet-boxer, was neither a good poet nor a good boxer, but he was a legendary provocateur.     Hemingway, Mailer, and Scorsese: much great American art has been inspired by boxing. George Bellows’s may be the bes…

  Being a red-blooded, blue-blooded male in the Carolingian Empire was a risky business. Those who grew up in Western Europe during the eighth and ninth centuries were frequently exposed to extreme violence. One adolescent royal from the period wa…

One December day in 1939, Frank Nugent, a film critic for the New York Times, took his seat at the premiere of Gone with the Wind and waited for the carnage to unfold. So long and overblown had the movie’s ad campaign been that Nugent was sure it …

  On June 22, 1941, the Third Reich launched its ill-fated invasion of Russia. It was pestilential in scale; more than three million Axis soldiers swarmed Russia’s borders in a matter of hours, overwhelming Soviet defenses. Hitler regarded the p…

The phenomenon of the London “Roaring Girl” reached its apotheosis in the form of Mary Frith, a smoking, cursing, thieving, braggart who spoke and—most shocking of all—dressed like a man.

After writing his best-selling ‘Os Sertões,’ Euclides da Cunha set off to map the lands of Amazonia. But he left important pieces of himself behind.

Mary Ellen Pleasant made a name and a fortune in Gold Rush–era San Francisco, shattering racial taboos until her success made her the target of a smear campaign.

London journalists claimed to see white women’s bodies “befouled,” their brains “benumbed of all moral sense,” simply by being in the presence of Asian men.

Otto Pelzter was a new type of hero for Weimar Germany—until he ended up in the hands of the Gestapo.

Way ahead of his time, Scappi made the point that food is just as much a material of artistic creation as marble, and those who work with it are true artists.

When mass numbers of Armenians were being deported and slaughtered, Davis, almost forgotten to history, offered to hide them in the U.S. Consulate.

The Rajput princess whose spiritual anthems rejected the patriarchy.  Edward White’s The Lives of Others is a monthly series about unusual, largely forgotten figures from history. In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to a church…

The British Fascisti boasted female-only paramilitary units and a Fascist Children’s Club. Lintorn-Orman insisted that women serve in leadership roles.

The British Fascisti boasted female-only paramilitary units and a Fascist Children’s Club. Lintorn-Orman insisted that women serve in leadership roles.

The ruse that gave rise to the spiritualist movement.Edward White’s The Lives of Others is a monthly series about unusual, largely forgotten figures from history.On July 13, 1930, Arthur Conan Doyle made an appearance at London’s Royal Albert…

Alexander Bedward’s mythical powers of flight.­Edward White’s The Lives of Others is a monthly series about unusual, largely forgotten figures from history.It’s impossible to know exactly how many people amassed in August Town, Jamaica, on New Year…

Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatname is one of history’s greatest travelogues.Edward White’s The Lives of Others is a monthly series about unusual, largely forgotten figures from history.According to his own recollection, Evliya Çelebi, the seventeenth-centu…

How Mary Toft convinced doctors she’d given birth to rabbit parts. Edward White’s The Lives of Others is a monthly series about unusual, largely forgotten figures from history. News travels fast in London, where opinions are swiftly made and lo…

Frank Buckland wanted to save—and eat—as many animals as possible.This is the first entry in Edward White’s The Lives of Others, a monthly series about unusual, largely forgotten figures from history. He has previously written for the Daily on Carl V…

David Storey’s classic rugby novel, This Sporting Life, speaks to an enduring schism in English culture.“I went straight for the full-back,” the up-and-coming rugby star of David Storey’s 1960 novel, This Sporting Life, tells us: “and when he came …

We’re out until January 5, but we’re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2014 while we’re away. We hope you enjoy—and have a happy New Year!*Carl Van Vechten shaped and burnished the legend of Gertrude Stein.Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein’s…

Carl Van Vechten shaped and burnished the legend of Gertrude Stein.Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein’s collection of experimental still-life word portraits split into the categories of objects, food, and rooms, and which—excluding a vanity publicati…