Feature Stories
Short form journalism on the people, companies, and ideas that built modern America. Each Feature Story sits at the intersection of European origin and American consequence.
Featured Story
Spain: The European Power America Forgot
From the siege of Pensacola to the Camino de Santiago, the country that shaped American foundations has been written out of the anniversary. This series begins where America's 250th memory has its largest gap.
On a humid March morning in 1781, Bernardo de Gálvez rode at the head of four Spanish ships into the narrow entrance of Pensacola Bay, flying his own flag from the lead vessel while British guns opened fire. It was a reckless move, and it worked. By May, after a two-month siege, Pensacola had fallen. Spanish arms had taken Mobile the year before and tightened the Gulf against Britain at the very moment the American war needed another front. That scene is the right place to begin because Spain's contribution to American independence was both concrete and oddly easy to miss.
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Earlier Feature Stories from the publication.
Companies
The Apothecary's Ledger: Merck and the Geopolitics of Transatlantic Knowledge
For much of its life, Merck was a carrier of knowledge — moving drugs, expertise, and people across borders that were becoming steadily less permeable.
Companies
The Candy That Cured: How a Württemberg Chemist's Toffee Worm Cure Became Pfizer
The company that produced one of the most important vaccines of the twenty-first century began by selling sweets.
Industry
The Spruce and the Sovereign: How European Roots Launched America's Premier Air Power
The best American air power was not born all at once in a hangar or a laboratory. It was assembled, clause by clause, from European theory, wartime practice, and an American appetite for scale.
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