The Verge

Historic Photo: The barricades of Bordeaux, France, 1968 (and what it looks like now).

Historic Painting: "Le Tache Noire" (The Black Spot) by Albert Bettannier, 1887.

This painting is a masterwork of light, emotion and human expression, but it also contains an explicitly political message.

Deadly poker game: The moral gamble of the Lusitania.

The Lusitania disaster was a terrible collision of chutzpah on one side and naïvete on the other.

Historic Photo: Nagasaki, Japan, 1865.

Free history books! The heartbreaking story of the Fourth Crusade.

Historic Painting: "San Francisco Fire" by William A. Coulter, 1906.

The dissenters: five who voted against American entry into World War I.