*Magnificent.* No spoilerz.

That's part of why I wrote this. It's important to understand that MAGA is not "real" America. On the contrary, the reason they're all so fucking bitter is they know most people aren't like them. And they resent that. www.salon.com/2025/10/01/m...

Magic stuff and it's free!

you found this persuasive? this?

when my landlord couldn’t fight off the city inspector & they were like “hey, fix the lead & asbestos on on the walls & roof” he refused to hire a licensed abatement pro; wrangled his kid who hated doing it & left lead paint & asbestos in the yard; & when neighbors complained, he just mowed over it.

📣 We are delighted to announce that the Fall 2025 issue of Renaissance Quarterly (vol. 78.3) has been published online. You can view it here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #RenTwitter #earlymodern #Renaissance @universitypress.cambridge.org

A bus of Bronx middle schoolers pulled up to the Capitol this morning for a long-planned field trip just a few hours after the government shut down. All Capitol tours were cancelled as the guides can’t work in shutdown. So I escorted them in myself and gave them a personal tour. They were great!

This afternoon in 1957 in Russia, at the Mayak plant in the closed city of Chelyabinsk-65 near Kyshtym in the Southern Urals, a stainless steel tank holding 70-80 tons of highly-radioactive waste from extracting plutonium for nuclear weapons exploded, releasing 20 million curies of radioactivity.

The Soviet Union kept this nuclear accident secret until June 1989. Some 270,000 people are estimated to have lived in the most heavily contaminated 15,000-kilometer zone, but only 10,180 were evacuated, and then only in phases over about two years. They were never told why they had to leave.

You have to understand, as a historian of slavery, the slave trade, and public health, I can’t unsee the harm the US (Democrats and Republicans) have sewn and supported around the world during my short lifetime. Care, solidarity, and collective action feel like the only option, knowing what I know.

Even with a smaller class Black History Taboo was still a blast! After I teach the second half of the survey next semester, I will be working with a designer for a full deck!

Thanks to TIME for featuring @drsethberkley.bsky.social, author of the forthcoming book FAIR DOSES: An Insider's Story of the Pandemic and the Global Fight for Vaccine Equity (Oct), on the front cover today for his Ideas piece: time.com/7320256/vacc...

OMG THIS, grammar nerds!

What does resistance look like when you’re holding a paintbrush instead of a rifle?  In my latest Q&A, Christopher Gorham talks about Matisse at War—a story of art, family, and defiance in Nazi-occupied France. Read here: https://www.historyinthemargins.com/ 🗃️

Rep. Lisa McClain, on CNN, praising President Trump for deploying the National Guard to Washington: "My daughter could actually ride the Metro for the first time since she has been in DC." [Her daughter is 22]

If you're a writer/author new to Bluesky, Starter Packs are the jam. This directory can help you find ones by interest. It's searchable too! 🔍 blueskydirectory.com/starter-pack... #indieauthors #writingcommunity #writesky

It's #spookyseason or #monstertober! Everything is a horror show but some stories about monsters are charming and escapist, or at least weird and ancient. ICYMI, here's an essay from me about some of the theories about monsters in the ancient Mediterranean. pasts-imperfect.ghost.io/pasts-imperf...

The hematologist Oswald H. Robertson pioneered the idea of "blood banks" in WWI by packing glass jars of citrated blood from universal donors in an ice-filled chest that he had constructed from ammunition cases. He convinced countless others to donate blood during the war.

Did you think I was kidding when I said this book is amazing and you should preorder it now? Kudos to coeditors @annaleen.bsky.social and @older.bsky.social, and our incredible roster of writers and activists, for creating such a marvellous work!

AOC: I think there's two things that are happening at once: One, there absolutely is an unprecedented abuse of power, destruction of norms, erosion of our government and our democracy in order to prop up an authoritarian style of governance However, they are weaker than they look…

I'm so looking forward to @lollardfish.bsky.social's THE PUBLIC SCHOLAR - A Practical Handbook. In January I attended a @historians.org session at which he talked about op-eds - and I managed to publish one in June (linked below) and got a few more essay commissions. #academicsky 🗃 1/2

Happy The Democrats Are Barely Competent Day! Yes they finally let a shutdown happen but are so bad at their jobs that media is blaming them and a majority of Americans don't yet blame their opponents who are in charge of all three branches of the government

Why wasn’t this useless man saying this from the moment he took office?

Hm, an auspicious quote on the day the Royal Society decides whether they still want Musk as a Fellow.

Since I’m awake… hi there, #UK friends! I’m coming to you on book tour for THE INTERMEDIARIES, a timely history of science, #transrights and the LGBTQ+ fight against Nazis. This thread has the events, and here is the full list on my site: brandyschillace.com

I'm hugely honoured and very excited to be giving this year's Historical Research #Lecture at @ihr.bsky.social, on 'Can popular #history be radical? Historical research and writing for the #public'. Tuesday 4 November, all welcome. More info in AltText. Book here: www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Congrats to @theprofrog.bsky.social, launching GRAVEYARDS tomorrow! #SpookySeason 💙📚 🗃

they should probably let people know this exists. And put it on Twitch. And have someone who knows how to stream comment over it.

I'm so looking forward to @lollardfish.bsky.social's THE PUBLIC SCHOLAR - A Practical Handbook. In January I attended a @historians.org session at which he talked about op-eds - and I managed to publish one in June (linked below) and got a few more essay commissions. #academicsky 🗃 1/2

Thrilled to hear and meet @nhannahjones.bsky.social in person! Event hosted by De Dépendance, Rotterdam, the Netherlands; chair and moderator, Hani Salih. 💙📚 🗃

Literally everyone I know with indefinite leave to remain is either in the NHS or education - so I’m not sure how they can prove they’ve contributed more to society than they’ve always done. They’ve certainly done more than any no mark Labour politician whose sat on their lazy arse their entire life

‘So the rumours are true … time to ask some serious questions about Reform and Russia’ My column on Nathan Gill, former leader of Reform in Wales, admitting taking bribes to make statements in favour of Russia while a member of the European Parliament www.heraldscotland.com/politics/vie...

All to avoid the shame of acknowledging the horrible, psychologically troubling truth. Labour has for a long time been a party of the PMC, by the PMC, for the PMC. It’s just, here’s the thing about the PMC. They are the electoral majority. And they are how Labour won, will win, and can only win. n/n

I have the design for the proofs copies of my book! 🤩🌊 I'm thrilled with it! What do you reckon? Would this stand out to you? 📚📚

Labour seem to hate their own voters. You know whose voters would be cool though? People who voted for Reform, or who want to do so now. That’s the ticket. That such people might disagree with almost every value Labour MPs and voters hold dear? Well that just makes them cooler. Hard to impress. 5/n

An interesting local experiment in financial reparations for race-based segregation. And a sharing link for 3 non-subscribers: on.ft.com/3Kt41wO

More people need to understand that saying only “criminals” should be subjected to expanding state violence around us is what led to the broader public being targeted by it, too. Criminality is subjective, and power determines what it is or is not.

My dad got polio because a doctor at an AFB told my grandma that there was no polio where they were and "don't worry your pretty little head." Wouldn't give them the vaccine. His right arm still randomly stops working. Guess which of my parents was rabid about us getting every vaccine?

"An old vagrant's corpse is stuffed with newspaper after being raided for useful organs by two pipe-smoking, wisecracking surgeons." Colour photomechanical reproduction of a lithograph by N. Dorville, c. 1901.

Thread of the Day 🥇

In The Tech Coup, @marietjeschaake.bsky.social offers a frightening look at our modern tech-obsessed world—& a clear-eyed view of how democracies can build a better future before it is too late. Now in #paperback. Read a free sample & save 30% with code PUP30: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

I love this so much.

🚨 Please be very alarmed. Data errors? Extrajudicial deportation? Unaccounted “self-deportation”? Worse? Or all of the above? Not seeing this in most mainstream media but this is an incredibly bad sign for the 1,200 missing. www.democracynow.org/2025/9/23/he...

I made the USA Today Best-Selling Booklist! Thank you to everyone- who bought the book, read the book and all the positive feedback! Yes, it’s a warning but it is also a testament to the incredible work teachers do.

i've seen so many articles on this today, and not a single one so far has pointed out that where "not taking any benefits payments" is concerned, you have no access to public funds on a visa. this has been the case for years. but nobody, from the BBC down, will challenge this or anything else

This tweet has been doing the rounds on Twitter now that Nathan Gill has pleaded guilty. If only someone had tried to investigate UKIP & Russian interference 🧐 There’s another timeline where the Guardian supported me, doubled down on the investigation & I look 5 years younger ..

SCOOP / UPDATE — Disney saw more than 1.7 million total paid streaming cancelations during the period 9/17-9/23, a Disney source confirms to me. The total includes Disney+, Hulu and ESPN.

Speaking very fast - around 135wpm. Reading the same text goes a lot faster - 400wpm was once an average grad school reading speed, or much faster if you were skim-reading to find the bits on which to focus. Video / audio have their benefits, but ingesting info at speed isn't one of them.

🎉 Update from me: I've just sent my editor the first draft of my second book, "How to Build a Universe"! ⚛️ ➡️ 🌌 It's probably still about a year from publication, but even just getting this draft together has been a journey. Really looking forward to sharing more with you! #HowToBuildAUniverse 🧪🔭🎢