Langston Hughes scholars have debated the writer’s sexuality

Hughes wrote for and about everyday Black Americans

Early in his career, Hughes was often disregarded by prominent white literary critics and criticized by Black intellectuals for his sometimes negative portrayal of Black life. Hughes, though, was unconcerned, saying that he wrote for the “workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters” of New York, Washington, Chicago, and other Black hubs.

Langston Hughes wrote a foundational text for the Harlem Renaissance

Although the 1920s artistic movement lacked formal leaders, Hughes' 1926 essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" established him as one of its figureheads. Hughes' piece argues that Black artists should not be ashamed of their race; instead, they should embrace it, while simultaneously pursuing their own individual artistic visions.

Hughes' poems brought blues and jazz to poetry

Poets like Walt Whitman and Claude McKay inspired Hughes, but he was also enamored with blues and jazz music. The styles informed the way he structured his verses, with Hughes employing repetition and rhythm in ways similar to the standard 12-bar blues form and playing with meter in a way that recalled the improvisation of jazz.

Langston Hughes solicited ghost stories from his readers

Hughes had a column in the Chicago Defender newspaper for two decades. In 1951, he asked readers to send him their ghost stories, promising that he'd reward them with autographed copies of his books. He spent the next several months dedicating the column to the stories he received.

Hughes testified before Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Subcommittee on Investigations

In 1953, the writer was interrogated by the Subcommittee’s chief counsel, Roy Cohn, about communism and its impact on his work. Cohn quoted lines from poems like “Goodbye, Christ” and “Ballads of Lenin,” but Hughes denied that he was a communist, explaining that poetry should not be taken literally. “That is a poem,” he told Cohn. “One can not state one believes every word of a poem.”

Writer James Baldwin once criticized Langston Hughes for squandering his talent

In 1959, Baldwin, the author of renowned works like “Go Tell It on the Mountain” and “Giovanni’s Room,” reviewed Hughes’ “Selected Poems” for the New York Times. Baldwin panned the book, writing, “Every time I read Langston Hughes I am amazed all over again by his genuine gifts—and depressed that he has done so little with them.” (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Langston Hughes wrote several children's books

Later in his career, the “Poet Laureate of Harlem” branched out into children’s literature, releasing a series of “First Book” titles (“The First Book of Rhythms,” “The First Book of Jazz”) as well as some that helped young Black children cope with racism, like 1969’s “Black Misery.”

Langston Hughes poems inspired Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I Have a Dream'

In 1959, King wrote to Hughes, saying, "I can no longer count the number of times and places … in which I have read your poems." Scholars believe that Hughes' words—particularly his poems "Harlem" and "I Dream a World"—inspired King's most famous speech, "I Have a Dream."

Watch Langston Hughes perform with a jazz quintet

In 1958, Hughes performed with a jazz group on a Vancouver television show before appearing at the University of British Columbia. Hughes reads "Hey!" from his 1927 collection "Fine Clothes to the Jew" before performing 1925's "The Weary Blues."

Beard sometimes downplayed his sexual orientation

Beard was a gay man living at a time when many gay people hid their orientation, fearing prejudice and violence. Considering that, Beard sometimes downplayed his identity in public, though he officially came out in 1981 in his memoir.

A profile of Dickinson's ambiguous but close relationship with Susan Gilbert

Gilbert met Dickinson in 1850, and the two women quickly became very close, with Dickinson often pining for Gilbert in letters. In this essay, critic Maria Popova calls the relationship "beautiful, heartbreaking, unclassifiable," and details how it came to inspire Dickinson's writing, even after Gilbert married Dickinson's brother.

One of Sartre and de Beauvoir's lovers accused them of exploitation

The philosophical duo's open relationship sometimes included shared partners, including de Beauvoir's students. One of those students, Bianca Lamblin, wrote a book, "A Disgraceful Affair," about the experience and characterized it as sexual exploitation.

The 'golden age' studio system often controlled actors' personal lives

The "Big Five" studio system minted stars, but it also tightly controlled their personal lives. Homosexuality, in particular, was seen as a liability. One example is Rock Hudson, a major star in the 1950s and '60s, who was forced into an arranged marriage with his agent's secretary.

Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings are often assumed to be sexual, though the artist claimed she was simply interested in highlighting the beauty of flowers that most people neglect

Picasso was also a poet

In addition to his painting, Picasso wrote poetry, including several works that were published by his friend André Breton, founder of the surrealist movement, who described reading the poems as “being in the presence of an intimate journal, both of the feelings and of the senses, such as has never been kept before.”

Whitman led a Lincoln lecture late in life

Whitman toured several cities with “The Death of Lincoln,” a lecture series about the slain president that sought to establish him as a crucial figured in American history. The talks attracted famous figures, including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Some doubt Shakespeare is who scholars say he is

Major contemporaries of Shakespeare have been proposed as the real writer of his plays and poems, including Anne Hathaway, Ben Jonson, and Sir Walter Raleigh.

The poem behind 'Strange Fruit'

"Bitter Fruit" was written by Abel Meeropol, a teacher, under the pseudonym Lewis Allen, after seeing a photograph of a lynching. Eventually, he set the words to music, and the song was then performed by his wife and other singers. In 1938, he played it for Holiday, who began performing it at the New York's Cafe Society. (Some users may experience a paywall.)

The facts of Truth's life and legacy are still debated by historians

Historians have challenged the accepted biography of Truth—questioning whether she actually ever said "Ain't I a Woman?" and arguing that generations of activists have claimed Truth as a symbol at the expense of accurately understanding who she really was.

Writer DH Lawrence argued that the novel is the height of literature

DH Lawrence was a 20th-century writer, known for his novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” In his essay “Why the Novel Matters,” written in 1925, Lawrence argues that the novel, more than any other literary form, allows readers to experience the whole of human experience, writing that “only in the novel are all things given full play.”

Stephen Hawking's final message

Famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking—who lived for half a century after being diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease—delivered a final speech just before he died in 2018. In the video, Hawking talks about the importance of science and reason in...

Interred Japanese Americans wrote satirical poetry

Senryu is a Japanese poetic form that is similar to the haiku, though its aim is often satirical and its composition is often collaborative. At California’s Tule Lake Segregation Center, interred citizens met to write senryu together, often composing verse that criticized their surroundings.

In 2020, Loyola University Maryland removed O’Connor’s name from a dormitory

The decision was made after a student petition, citing private letters using racial epithets. Hundreds of writers and academics wrote an open letter criticizing the move, including novelist Alice Walker, who said, “We must honor Flannery for growing. Hide nothing of what she was, and use that to teach.”

Sylvester's 'You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)' is a definitive LGBTQ+ anthem

The 1978 dance hit was all about self-acceptance, inspired by the artist's difficult experience growing up gay in a Pentecostal church. The song has influenced numerous contemporary artists and inspired an off-Broadway musical.

Lucasfilm discouraged fan fiction that sexualized its characters

The self-published fan fiction zines of the '60s, '70s, and '80s were obscure enough that they rarely attracted the attention of the copyright holders of their source material. But Lucasfilm, the production company behind the "Star Wars" films, threatened legal action against fans who published X-rated stories and "homosexual expressions of love" featuring its characters.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Camus died in a car crash, which some believe was orchestrated by the KGB

Albert Camus died in 1960, at the age of 46, after his publisher's car crashed into a tree. Italian author Giovanni Catelli, however, alleges that what appeared to be an accident was actually an assassination by the Soviet spy agency as a way to silence the French writer's anti-Soviet beliefs.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Scientists have struggled to pin down Ebola's natural reservoir species for decades, but the available evidence suggests that it's very likely fruit and insect-eating bats found in Africa.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.