Interactive Narratives

When Bird signed up for the Marines in the early 1950s, he didn't know that one day he would "volunteer" to stand beneath a nuclear bomb blast. On July 5, 1957, Bird stood in a trench 4000 yards from Shot Hood--a 74 kiloton nuclear bomb, a weapon of the Cold War that left its legacy on the irradiated bodies of young Marines and innocent civilians tainted by fallout. Nearly fifty years would pass before he would write about his experiences in a book--after a hard battle with what the Japanese called "atomic bomb disease." His memoir is the first written by a military veteran of America's open air atomic bomb testing. More…

Has humanity attained the pinnacle of its potential? Or is it about to be reached? In an age of terrorism and a celebrity-centered media overload it may appear to many that humanity is in a downward spiral. But for others, we're on the cusp of a new age: where humanity is about to become a space-faring civilization. This web documentary is an exploration of humanity's need to go out beyond the realm of its one world in order to seek what it seems to have lost--its origins as a species of explorers and pioneers. More…

Photographer James Nachtwey shows how the health crises created by the war in Congo can kill long after the shooting stops. More…

Each United States service member who has died in Iraq and been identified by the Defense Department is represented by a small square to the right. Learn about the individuals by isolating a specific service member. You can also analyze the demographics and military status of U.S. service members. More…

Five years after the Taliban fled Kabul under the cover of night, signs of fragile but real progress abound. Simple pleasures once prohibited - song and dance, the flutter of kites - have resumed. And for the first time, women and girls once repressed under Taliban rule are able to take better control of their lives and their futures. More…

A single-engine plane registered to the New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle crashed into a residential building; Mr. Lidle and his flight instructor were both killed. More…

Swaziland, one of the poorest regions in Africa, has the world's highest known rates of HIV infection and AIDS. Approximately 70,000 children younger than 17 have lost one or both parents to AIDS. More…

They are natives or newcomers, flooding Boston for college and jobs, coloring the city's complexion as dramatically as the changing leaves along Commonwealth Ave. Baby boomers may dominate the demographic landscape in the country as a whole, but here in this city of learning and discovery, young people in their 20s are at the hub of life, making up 23 percent of Boston's population. More…

For the past three years, Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan and Chronicle photographer Brant Ward followed Georgia Mitchell, a 55-year-old homeless woman in San Francisco. Through the help of the city's services, Mitchell is now off the streets and living in a supportive housing complex. More…

If the homicide rate is the story of violence in Milwaukee, the story that has gone largely untold is of the lives that are saved and those who save them. Each year, on average, about 600 people are struck by gunfire in the city and survive, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis of data obtained from police, hospital and fire officials. More…