The Angle

The Angle: Some Good Things Edition

Slate’s daily newsletter on pretty new buildings, queer sources of joy, and a nice, deserving Canadian bird.

President Barack Obama speaks at the dedication of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on Sept. 24 in Washington, D.C.

Astrid Riecken/Getty Images

We’ve been beating ourselves up for what feels like months. Here are a few pieces about good things that happened in 2016.

Structures: Henry Grabar counts the best new buildings erected in the United States over the past year, taking heart from gorgeous libraries, education centers, museums, and temples.

Websites: I rounded up five great places to browse digital history that were launched in 2016. Here are redlining maps, an early-20th-century tour of the Grand Canyon, slang timelines, and more. (I’ll add five more on Tuesday.) 

Birds: The magazine Canadian Geographic recently nominated the gray jay as the national bird. Nicholas Lund applauds a muted, subtle choice.

LGBTQ joy: Contributors to our Outward blog named bits of queer culture that heartened them in 2016, including radical queer Twitter, the performance artist Taylor Mac, and Garth Greenwell’s novel What Belongs to You.

Photos: Some of the best from Pete Souza’s final year as chief White House photographer.

See you on the other side,

Rebecca