Damn History / January 2025

In Public

The start of January is one of my favorite times. With the turning of the new year, an enormous number of books, stories, plays, sound recordings, films, and other works enter the public domain in the U.S. – meaning we can acquire, publish, and repurpose them with no concerns about copyright infringement.

This year’s new entries in the public domain come from 1929 (1924 for sound recordings), which like all years was a good time for creative expression. Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain gives a good round-up of what’s newly available and why the public domain is important.

Here in Damn History you'll find, as usual, recommendations on good and popularly accessible historical reading, with tips on writing and updates on my own work.

 — Jack El-Hai

Follow me on X at @Jack_ElHai, on Bluesky at @jackelhai.bsky.social, and on Threads at @jackelhai1.

Contact me by email at [email protected]

Personal Notes

Actor Russell Crowe discusses what it was like to play Hermann Göring in Nuremberg, the film adaptation of my book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist. [In Spanish]

For a bountiful collection of my popular-history book, audiobook, article, documentary, and podcast recommendations, search X, Bluesky, or Threads for the hashtag #popularhistory.

Recent Popular History from All Over

You may find some of these articles behind a paywall if you’ve exceeded the publisher’s allowance of free views.

Forensic linguists used grammar, syntax, and vocabulary to solve a decades-old cold case.

Nazi science continues to haunt the study of anatomy.

700 years of historical data reveal much about extreme weather.

A body was in the basement of “the hottest club in New York City.”

Moviegoers and social activists resisted the release of the film The Birth of a Nation.

Lost manuscripts appear in a book exhibit.

A science writer calls out the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman as a creepy “groping genius.”

“The hamster wheel of journalistic productivity” drained Willa Cather’s creative energy.

A journalist refused to let the Nazis silence him.

A recently discovered book printed with metal movable type predates the Gutenberg Bible by more than 200 years.

After 50 years, has the mysterious identity of airplane hijacker DB Cooper been discovered?

Resources

Writers and readers, ditch the cynicism.

A certain place enables Ken Burns to “make the films of his choosing.”

Why Substack wants you to call your creative work by its brand name.

Surprise: a poet finds her work being printed and sold on blankets.

You can benefit from reading plays.

Find treasures by effectively searching the Chronicling America digital collection of the Library of Congress.

“I’m writing a memoir. It’s a pack of lies.” – John Banville

Housekeeping

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More next month, and thanks for looking. And you are welcome to forward Damn History in its entirety to anyone.

About me: I'm a writer whose beat is history. I've contributed hundreds of articles to such publications as Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Magazine, Wired, Scientific American, Discover, GQ, Longreads and many others. My books include The Lost Brothers: A Family’s Decades-Long Search, The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness, Non-Stop: A Turbulent History of Northwest Airlines, and The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goering, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WW2.

I frequently give talks and lead workshops on the topics of my books as well as on the craft of nonfiction writing. Please contact Jayme Boucher, Hachette Speakers Bureau, at [email protected] to book me for your event.

Please feel free to get in touch.