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Medieval portrait of Richard Rolle

Forgotten, priceless medieval book found in school library

Canada and USA reenacting the war during 1812

British soldier’s long-lost memoir rediscovered in Cleveland

Blockbuster video store exterior at night

How to make a Blockbuster VHS sleeve for any movie

A shark tooth next to a spoon used to excavate it from sand in Oman

In ancient Arabia, people dined on sharks and stingrays

elon musk, game of thrones, queen elizabeth, barack obama

Wikipedia’s 25 most popular entries of all time

A sample of the dental remains excavated in Pontecagnano that date to the 7th-6th century BCE.

Iron Age teeth reveal the hidden lives of ancient Italians

the remains of an ice age wolf

14,000-year-old woolly rhinoceros DNA extracted from wolf’s stomach

By Laura Baisas

Depiction of the fourth horseman of the apocalypse, Death, riding a mythical creature, presumably a winged lion. Below him is a personification of famine (Fames), pointing to her open mouth. The depiction was created in Erfurt in the mid-14th century; the connection to Neuses may be drawn due to the date – St. Mark’s Day – of the annual memorial procession leading to the mass grave. Source: Klassik-Stiftung Weimar

Medieval plague victims likely found in mass grave in Germany

A colorful, detailed line illustration depicting a medieval courtroom scene where a pig is standing trial. The pig stands on its hind legs at a wooden witness stand or dock, facing a panel of judges and clerics seated behind a long table. In the foreground, a man in a light blue robe points a finger accusatorially at the pig, while other onlookers in traditional medieval tunics and headwear watch the proceedings with expressions of concern and curiosity. The setting features gothic arched windows and draped backdrops typical of the period.

In medieval France, murderous pigs faced trial and execution

Diver underwater investigating Viking shipwreck

600-year-old Viking shipwreck is the largest of its kind

An elevated, long-range photograph of the Rano Raraku volcanic crater on Easter Island, showing several moai statues partially buried in the grassy hillside. The massive stone heads and torsos are scattered across a sloped landscape that leads up to a rugged, rocky cliff face with visible excavation sites. Some areas of the background rock feature unnatural blue markings, likely from digital editing or site markers.

3D map of Easter Island takes you places visitors aren’t allowed

A vintage photograph of an explosion happening on a baech.

BOOM! That time Oregon blew up a whale with dynamite.

By Shoshi Parks

Both sides of one of the arrowheads analysed. The left-hand image shows the organic remains in which the arrowhead residues were identified. Photo: Marlize Lombard

World’s oldest poison-tipped arrow discovered in South Africa

A fluffy beavers sits in front of a fallen tree branch with yellow leaves.

Idaho once dropped 76 beavers from airplanes—on purpose

By Jennifer Byrne

‘King of Silver Dollars’ coin could fetch over $1M at auction

By Laura Baisas

several united states quarters

5 new quarters commemorate 250 years of American independence

By Laura Baisas

a yellow flag with a coiled rattle snake and the words "dont tread on me"Gadsden Flag, Vikkram, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.

How the timber rattlesnake became a symbol of American independence

By Laura Baisas

A close-up, angled shot of a silver waiter's corkscrew in the process of opening a wine bottle. The metal lever of the corkscrew is braced against the lip of the dark glass bottle, while the black spiral "worm" is drilled deep into the center of the natural wood cork. The background is a soft, out-of-focus gradient of green and grey.

The corkscrew began as a tool for muskets, not merlot

By Andrew Coletti

A taxidermied squirrel named Tommy Tucker standing upright inside a glass display case. The squirrel is dressed in a miniature pink pleated dress with puffy sleeves and a white ribbon tied around the waist, paired with a small pearl necklace. The display case is secured with a brass knob and a black padlock. In the blurred background, papers and a water bottle are visible on a desk.

During WWII, a dress-wearing squirrel sold war bonds alongside FDR

By Amy Crawford

‘Mr. Fezziwig's Ball,’ an 1843 illustration by John Leech for ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. This novella was the earliest and most popular of Dickens' Christmas stories. The kissing under mistletoe (left) and evergreen decoration hanging from the ceiling are vestiges of pre-Christian winter rites.

A history of mistletoe: The parasitic ‘dung on a twig’

An 1886 color illustration depicting a crowd of people, including men, women, and children, gathered around a massive wheel of cheese in the East Room of the White House. A man in a dark coat is carving into the cheese with a knife, while others eagerly reach out with their own knives and hands to take a piece. In the foreground, a small boy sits on the floor eating a piece of the cheese. This event commemorates the distribution of the "Mammoth Cheese" gifted to President Andrew Jackson in 1835.

Andrew Jackson’s White House once hosted a cheese feeding frenzy

A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry showing a medieval dining scene involving Bishop Odo of Bayeux.

Famous phallic tapestry may have entertained monks during meals

By Laura Baisas

Rhesus macaque bones in Roman animal cemetery grave

Roman generals gifted kittens and piglets to their pet monkeys

A close-up, high-angle view of four biscotti pieces standing upright in a dark bowl, surrounding a small white cup filled with espresso topped with foam. The biscotti are thick, light brown, and contain visible chunks of nuts, dried fruit (possibly apricot or orange peel), and dark chocolate. A cinnamon stick is visible in the bottom right corner, and a glass of milk or cream is partially visible on the left. The background is a blurred light wooden surface.

Biscotti once fed Roman navies and Christopher Columbus’s expeditions

By Vittoria Traverso

An astronaut in a white spacesuit floats in space above Earth, holding a handmade sign that reads “FOR SALE” in large pink letters. Reflections of space equipment and Earth are visible in the astronaut’s helmet visor, and part of a space shuttle is seen behind them with the blue curve of Earth in the background.

The space billboard that nearly happened

Underhammer 18th century pistol on table

Rare 19th century pistol used to rob Tulsa liquor store

An ancient Pompeii wall at a newly excavated site, where Associate Professor Admir Masic applied compositional analysis (overlayed to right) to understand how ancient Romans made concrete that has endured for thousands of years.

Pompeii’s ruins challenge Rome’s famous concrete recipe

A close-up, colorized photograph of a middle-aged man with a stern expression and a thick, reddish-brown beard. He is superimposed over a faded, beige background of densely printed, historical text, suggesting he is a figure related to the document's content, which appears to discuss Cattalo or Beefalo (a cow and buffalo hybrid), based on the filename.

The strange Wild West tale of the first cow-buffalo hybrid

By Bill Gourgey

Photograph of the fresco Trionfo della Morte, taken at its original location in the Camposanto Monumentale in Pisa. The fresco, known as the “Triumph of Death” and attributed to the painter Buonamico Buffalmacco, is not precisely dated; scholarly estimates range from 1335 to 1350. While it does not depict the Black Death explicitly, the selected detail shows victims of an epidemic from diverse social backgrounds, their souls carried off by demons.

Medieval volcanoes may have ignited the Black Death

1804 dollar seen from the front and back of the coin.

A long lost silver dollar may be worth $5 million

A brightly coloured illustration which can be viewed in any direction. It has many elements to it working together: men in suits around a table, someone in a data centre, big hands controlling the scenes and holding a phone, people in a production line. Motifs such as network diagrams and melting emojis are placed throughout the busy vignettes.

How to glimpse a pre-AI internet

Medieval grave slab made from Purbeck stone in museum exhibit case

Medieval shipwreck mistaken for underwater ‘rubbish’

Charles Darwin’s Address Book is a small brown leather notebook, with “VISITS” and “ADDRESSES” printed on its spine (photo 1) and index-letter tabs in alternating black and red. The entries were begun by his wife, Emma Darwin, and are in her pleasant, rounded handwriting (photo 2), shortly after their marriage in January 1839. Latter entries were by Darwin (photo 3), and he continued to use this Address Book throughout his lifetime.

Flip through Charles Darwin’s digitized address book

A scan of an Arabic manuscript of the dīwān of Ibn Sanā' al-Mulk dating back to 1181-1182 (left). The Annual perseid meteor seen in the sky on August 14, 2023. The meteors have a radiant bordering on Cassiopeia and Camelopardalis (right).

Medieval Arabic texts help researchers track down explosive star deaths

By Margherita Bassi

Fibonacci spiral overlaid on cactus blossom

Break out the calculators: November 23 is Fibonacci Sequence Day

Black and white photo of Shoshoni Infant in cradleboard

Indigenous women engineered energy-efficient baby carriers

Front and back of Omega penny design

The U.S. Mint is auctioning the last pennies—and they could sell for millions

Close up of replica of silver goblet from Near East engraved with sun god

4,000-year-old silver goblet tells a tale of chaos and order

Scuba diver investigating propellor of WW2 aircraft crash underwater

80 years ago, a WWII B-17 bomber crashed in the Baltic. Scientists are finally learning who was onboard.

Glass openwork vessel excavated at Cologne dating to around 350–400 CE with an image of an inscription on the right. Inscription: BIBE MVLTIS ANNIS (Drink [may you live] for many years!). Credit: State Collection of Antiquities and Glyptothek, Munich. Photos by Christa Koppermann

Ancient Rome’s fanciest glasses are full of cryptic symbols

Close up of Egyptian ceramic vessel with inscriptions

Opium may have been a daily habit for Ancient Egyptians

Swedish silver medieval coins in a pile

Fisherman searching for worms finds 20,000 medieval silver coins

A historical color photograph of the large Great Lakes freighter, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, sailing on the water. The ship has a prominent white superstructure at the bow with a dark red hull and a tan smokestack near the stern emitting a plume of black smoke. The weather appears overcast.

How the Witch of November doomed the ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’

By Bill Gourgey

Various angles of fragmented human skull

Medieval duke’s remains recount his grisly murder

V0015163ER Two hooded figures and a King grieve over a dead person whil Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images images@wellcome.ac.uk http://wellcomeimages.org Two hooded figures and a King grieve over a dead person while another masked figure comes to cleanse the room of the plague. Woodcut by V. Solis. Published: - Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Centuries of Black Death misinformation started with a poem

A vintage photo collage featuring an oval cut-out image of seven people—three men and four women, who appear to be young college students—dressed in 1920s-era clothing. They are standing close together and looking at the camera. The background is a texture of yellowed, old newsprint with blurred text about a sleep experiment.

In 1925, seven students went 60 hours without sleep—for science

By Bill Gourgey

Musket and cannonballs recovered in Scottish battlefield

18th century lead ammo found in Scottish Highlands

CT scan displaying German sword blade with engraved name on it

Renaissance sword reveals a hidden engraving

A colorful vintage poster illustration featuring a large Uncle Sam figure in a stars and stripes outfit, leaning down to adjust the hands of a massive clock with Roman numerals, which has a red center. Below him, a smaller man is running frantically with a small clock showing the time is one hour earlier. The text at the top reads "VICTORY! CONGRESS PASSES DAYLIGHT SAVING BILL." The style is reminiscent of early 20th-century American political or war-time posters.

The U.S. tried permanent daylight saving time—and hated it

Scan of hieroglyphs on Mayan Foundation Rock

Mystery Mayan ruler was no king

Skull of a soldier from the Napoleon army next to a button from a soldier's uniform.

The real killer of Napoleon’s army revealed by DNA testing

Roman skeletons in water well mass grave

Ancient Roman mass grave shows its army’s ethnic diversity

A dramatic, wide-angle photo of a scarecrow standing in a dry cornfield or patch of tall, brown crops at sunset. The scarecrow is dressed in a dark hat and long coat, with a sack covering its head and stick arms outstretched. The sky above is colored with orange and pink clouds.

How scarecrows went from ancient magic to fall horror fodder

Aerial photo of ancient ice storage facility excavation next to photos of a burial jar containing Chinese coins

Ancient underground freezer unearthed at South Korean castle

A fit, shirtless man performs a Pilates exercise on a reformer machine. He is in a deep lunge position, with his arms stretched out to the sides holding the machine's ropes. His body is taut, and he is looking straight ahead in a bright, modern studio.

Fitness & Exercise

Pilates started in a WWI internment camp

By Sara Kiley Watson

A close-up film still showing the face of an actor portraying Dracula, with bloodshot red eyes, blood dripping from his mouth, and pointed fangs visible. To the left, a woman's pale neck and chin, stained with blood, are visible as she is held by the vampire. The lighting is dark and dramatic.

Science Fiction

The spooky (and sweet) history of fake blood

Aerial photo of Teotihuacan city

A lost ancient language may be hiding in plain sight

A small, light blue vintage box of TAMPAX tampons is shown resting on a white surface. The box has blue text that reads "Sanitary Protection + Worn Internally," "TAMPAX," and "Accepted for Advertising by The American Medical Association." A single tampon, wrapped in paper and plastic, leans against the box.

How WWI and WWII revolutionized period products

By Cat Rainsford

a black and white photo of a ship leaning on its side in sea ice

Ernest Shackleton knew ‘Endurance’ had shortcomings, new study says

By Laura Baisas

A vintage photo collage featuring a man in a shirt and tie, intensely focused while looking into the eyepiece of a microscope. The image is overlaid on yellowed old text, likely a magazine or newspaper clipping, with blurred headlines visible in the background.

How a hatter and railroad clerk kickstarted cancer research

By Bill Gourgey

Close up view of bearded vulture

Multi-generational vulture nests hold 700 years of human artifacts

A colorized vintage advertisement featuring two smiling World War II-era pilots, both in flight suits. The pilot on the left is holding up a box of Milky Way candy bars, and the pilot on the right, who is leaning out of a plane cockpit, is looking down and smiling at the box.

How WWII made Hershey and Mars Halloween candy kings

By Diana Hubbell

P-2 Neptune airplane remains in aircraft boneyard

Buy a vintage military airplane for $25

Study diagram of ancient Egyptian cow bone whistle

Ancient Egypt’s cemetery police blew bone whistles made from cow toes