Type and topic

Essays and writing about history and humanities

Every link here is classified as essays and writing about history and humanities.

Hall of Fame: 25
Candidates: 38
Median span: 6.3 yrs
First seen: 2008

Strongest Hall records

25 items

What You Can't Say (2004)

www.paulgraham.com 31 submissions · 31 people · 14.5 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2014-03 Resurfaced 2022-03-16

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Reality has a surprising amount of detail (2017)

johnsalvatier.org 19 submissions · 17 people · 9.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2020-01 Resurfaced 2025-02-18

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Keep Your Identity Small (2009)

www.paulgraham.com 13 submissions · 12 people · 13.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2017-09 Resurfaced 2021-06-07

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Hiroshima (1946)

www.newyorker.com 17 submissions · 14 people · 10.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-11 Resurfaced 2025-08-02

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Life is Short

paulgraham.com 14 submissions · 13 people · 10.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2020-08 Resurfaced 2022-12-25

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How Automakers Invented the Crime of “Jaywalking”

www.vox.com 11 submissions · 11 people · 11.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-08 Resurfaced 2023-10-12

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Why Chinese Is So Damn Hard (1992)

pinyin.info 12 submissions · 12 people · 17.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2014-04 Resurfaced 2018-12-13

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Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

harpers.org 12 submissions · 12 people · 10.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-12 Resurfaced 2026-03-13

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Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds (2017)

www.newyorker.com 12 submissions · 12 people · 6.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-11 Resurfaced 2024-11-03

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Using the wrong dictionary (2014)

jsomers.net 14 submissions · 13 people · 11.5 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2021-12 Resurfaced 2023-09-03

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Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

www.reddit.com 7 submissions · 7 people · 7.7 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-09 Resurfaced 2022-09-19

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Why Nerds are Unpopular (2003)

www.paulgraham.com 12 submissions · 12 people · 10.4 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2017-01 Resurfaced 2020-10-07

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WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

sfwriter.com 10 submissions · 6 people · 11.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-06 Resurfaced 2024-06-26

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For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off from All Human Contact (2013)

www.smithsonianmag.com 12 submissions · 12 people · 9.9 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2020-04 Resurfaced 2024-01-11

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A Spectre is Haunting Unicode

www.dampfkraft.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 5.8 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-05 Resurfaced 2022-07-14

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Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish them (2009)

sivers.org 9 submissions · 9 people · 10.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-09 Resurfaced 2019-09-26

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When the U.S. air force discovered the flaw of averages

www.thestar.com 7 submissions · 7 people · 6.5 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2020-04 Resurfaced 2022-07-09

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What Did Ada Lovelace’s Program Actually Do?

twobithistory.org 7 submissions · 7 people · 6.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-12 Resurfaced 2024-12-16

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Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

www.exurbe.com 6 submissions · 6 people · 6.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-03 Resurfaced 2025-03-14

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The Church of Interruption

sambleckley.com 7 submissions · 7 people · 6.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-08 Resurfaced 2022-08-21

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Which word begins with "y" and looks like an axe in this picture? (2017)

english.stackexchange.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 6.6 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2024-01 Resurfaced 2024-01-17

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The Awful German Language (1880)

faculty.georgetown.edu 5 submissions · 5 people · 4.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-05 Resurfaced 2025-05-16

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Your real biological clock is you’re going to die (2018)

hmmdaily.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 7.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2026-01 Resurfaced 2026-01-02

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The medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’

www.bbc.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 4.3 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2026-04 Resurfaced 2024-02-02

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Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

acoup.blog 6 submissions · 6 people · 2.5 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2022-10 Resurfaced 2022-10-06

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Recently resurfaced

latest 20+ point return

Who Goes Nazi? (1941)

harpers.org 12 submissions · 12 people · 10.1 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2019-12 Resurfaced 2026-03-13

197max pts

Your real biological clock is you’re going to die (2018)

hmmdaily.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 7.2 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2026-01 Resurfaced 2026-01-02

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Hiroshima (1946)

www.newyorker.com 17 submissions · 14 people · 10.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2018-11 Resurfaced 2025-08-02

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The Awful German Language (1880)

faculty.georgetown.edu 5 submissions · 5 people · 4.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-05 Resurfaced 2025-05-16

198max pts

Stoicism's appeal to the rich and powerful (2019)

www.exurbe.com 6 submissions · 6 people · 6.0 years

Hall of Fame Class of 2025-03 Resurfaced 2025-03-14

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Candidates

Browse 38 candidates

IQ is largely a pseudoscientific swindle

medium.com 10 submissions · 8 people · 6.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-11-19

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Chesterton's Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking

fs.blog 10 submissions · 10 people · 4.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-12-15

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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English is weirdly different from other languages

aeon.co 7 submissions · 6 people · 9.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-05-01

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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The Missing 11th of the Month (2015)

drhagen.com 11 submissions · 11 people · 9.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-06-18

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science (2011)

www.thenewatlantis.com 4 submissions · 3 people · 8.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-04-05

Needs:5 submissions

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Daisugi, the 600-year-old Japanese technique of growing trees out of other trees

www.openculture.com 4 submissions · 4 people · 5.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-06-28

Needs:5 submissions

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Five Laws of Human Stupidity (1976)

harmful.cat-v.org 7 submissions · 7 people · 11.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-07-28

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Why did we wait so long for the bicycle?

rootsofprogress.org 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-03-21

Needs:5 submissions

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What If You Could Do It All Over?

www.newyorker.com 5 submissions · 5 people · 4.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-06-04

Needs:3 active years

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The short, tormented life of computer genius Phil Katz (2000)

www.bbsdocumentary.com 4 submissions · 4 people · 9.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2016-12-11

Needs:5 submissions

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Is There Anything Good About Men?

denisdutton.com 6 submissions · 6 people · 13.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2016-11-11

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Stoicism: Indifference is a power

aeon.co 3 submissions · 3 people · 9.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-01-13

Needs:5 submissions

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New approaches shed light on the magnitude of sex differences in personality

blogs.scientificamerican.com 5 submissions · 4 people · 3.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-05-05

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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Epistemic Learned Helplessness (2019)

slatestarcodex.com 4 submissions · 4 people · 6.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-01-12

Needs:5 submissions

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Toki Pona: A Language with a Hundred Words (2015)

www.theatlantic.com 6 submissions · 3 people · 5.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-10-27

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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In 1980s Los Angeles, a bank was robbed every hour (2019)

crimereads.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-10-21

Needs:5 submissions

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Where have you gone, Peter Norton? (2014)

www.technologizer.com 5 submissions · 4 people · 7.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-01-04

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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The enduring mystery of ‘Jawn,’ Philadelphia’s all-purpose noun (2016)

www.atlasobscura.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-09-16

Needs:5 submissions

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The vanished grandeur of accounting

www.bostonglobe.com 12 submissions · 3 people · 7.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2018-12-26

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart

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"How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later" – Philip K Dick

urbigenous.net 4 submissions · 4 people · 4.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-10-16

Needs:5 submissions

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Why no Roman industrial revolution?

acoup.blog 4 submissions · 4 people · 3.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-06-03

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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Color or Fruit? The Unlikely Etymology of “Orange”

lithub.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 5.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-01-19

Needs:5 submissions

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Censored Photographs of FDR’s Japanese Concentration Camps

anchoreditions.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 4.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-07-14

Needs:5 submissions

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The great medieval water myth (2013)

leslefts.blogspot.com 4 submissions · 3 people · 10.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-08-24

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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Haters

paulgraham.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-05-01

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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What John von Neumann Did at Los Alamos

3quarksdaily.com 3 submissions · 2 people · 2.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-04-07

Needs:5 submissions3 submitters3 active years

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Century-old stone "tsunami stones" dot Japan's coastline (2015)

www.smithsonianmag.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.8 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2025-08-04

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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We Are All Confident Idiots (2014)

psmag.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.6 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2022-05-20

Needs:5 submissions

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A forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast (2015)

www.caitlingreen.org 4 submissions · 4 people · 5.5 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-07-31

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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Pipe Dreams: The life and times of Yahoo Pipes

retool.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2026-01-05

Needs:5 submissions3 active years

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Ergonomics of the Symbolics Lisp Machine

lispm.de 3 submissions · 3 people · 7.4 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-11-15

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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Who smeared Richard Feynman?

blog.nuclearsecrecy.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 5.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2020-06-04

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

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The US government poisoned alcohol during Prohibition (2010)

www.slate.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.7 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2016-09-04

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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How to Be a Stoic (2016)

www.newyorker.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.3 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2021-06-16

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions

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Men Are Better at Maps Until Women Take This Course

nautil.us 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.2 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2019-04-09

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

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Steve Jobs and the Usable Computer (6 October 2011 by Tim Berners-Lee)

www.w3.org 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.1 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2023-05-03

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

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Lee Ross and the “Fundamental Attribution Error”

nonzero.substack.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 3.0 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2024-07-08

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

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France’s Zone Rouge – A Forbidden No Man’s Land Poisoned by War (2015)

www.messynessychic.com 3 submissions · 3 people · 2.9 years

Candidate Resurfaced 2018-04-26

Needs:2 breakout events 720+ days apart5 submissions3 active years

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