This Week in History

May 13-19

The best New Yorker articles published during this week across 100 years of the magazine.

100 articles from this week

Featured Pick

“Charlie Chaplin, Popular God of Film”

Waldo Frank · Profiles · May 23, 1925

Chaplin, who has shaken the world with laughter, sees himself as the greater joke, Waldo Frank wrote, in 1925.

Also Notable

“Robbery in Brooklyn—II”

Jack Alexander · Annals of Crime · May 20, 1939

ANNALS OF CRIME about the holdup of a U. S. Trucking Corporation armored car in Brooklyn. Stewart Wallace vas the veteran of the group. He was 51, and had …

“New York City’s Smallpox Scare”

Brendan Gill · Comment · May 24, 1947

In 1947, New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Israel Weinstein, denied the “crackpot” rumors about the smallpox vaccination, which rolled out to more than six million New Yorkers over the course of a month.

“Eating Crawfish in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana”

Calvin Trillin · U.S. Journal · May 20, 1972

From 1972: Calvin Trillin writes that there are crawfish (or crayfish, or crawdads) all over the country, but outside of Louisiana they are all but ignored.

“A Disciplined, Charging Army”

Frances FitzGerald · A Reporter at Large · May 18, 1981

Frances FitzGerald on the rise of the Christian right as a voting bloc.

“Remembering Satan—Part I”

Lawrence Wright · A Reporter at Large · May 17, 1993

Lawrence Wright’s 1993 report on how charges of sexual and satanic-ritual abuse in Olympia, Washington, escalated into a landmark case in the national obsession with cults and “recovered” memory.