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the front of a steam locomotive. it is black and reads "union pacific 4014"

World’s largest steam locomotive heads out on tour

By Laura Baisas

A medium shot of a dark-furred cat standing on a desk cluttered with vintage papers and an inkwell. The cat is looking alertly to its right, with its whiskers and fur illuminated by a dramatic light source against a dark, moody background.

The CIA once trained cats to be Cold War spies

an ice cap in the alps. it is topped with snow, but brown spots show significant melting

Alpine glacier holds history dating back to the Romans. And it’s melting—fast.

By Nidhi Sharma

Bathymetric view of USS Monitor, looking at the stern of the wreck with the boilers and inner framework of the armor belt captured by Northrop Grumman using μSAS™.

Civil War shipwreck remains in ‘fantastic’ shape on ocean floor

Shattered clay container with 100s of gold coins scattered around it

A buried jar of imperial gold coins resurfaces in Russia

Ancient Mayan water filters stopped a lot—just not mercury poisoning

During WWI, a daredevil pilot helped invent the first ‘drones’

By Bill Gourgey

A split image featuring a colorized portrait of Mary Anderson, a female inventor from the early 20th century, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a bow tie. Next to her portrait is an original technical patent drawing labeled with various "Fig" numbers, showing the mechanical design and lever system of her "Window Cleaning Device," the precursor to the modern windshield wiper.

Windshield wipers’ overlooked female inventor

By Shoshi Parks

Man pointing with stick at chalkboard diagram of AM radio setup

Watch a classified FM radio training video from WW2

Aerial photograph of the excavation area for the new fire station building on Lohagenweg in Hüllhorst. The tree cover marks the course of the source stream, which formed the basis for the construction of the former farmstead. Photo: LWL-AfW / A. Koch

2,500-year-old settlement found during fire station construction

An oil painting titled "The Pythia" by Camillo Miola, depicting the Oracle of Delphi in ancient Greece. The Pythia, a young woman in white and gold robes with a heavy gold necklace, is shown in a trance-like state, seated on a tall bronze tripod. Several priests in white tunics surround her, some holding olive branches and one taking notes on a tablet. In the foreground, two figures in ornate blue and gold robes kneel in prayer or supplication before a low stone altar. The scene is set against a deep red wall, with laurel leaves scattered across the floor and a large, dark omphalos stone visible on the left.

Ancient Greece’s most famous oracle was just high on gas fumes

By Andrew Coletti

Oval limestone with line etchings that likely represent a board game played in ancient Rome

Mystery stone is actually ancient Roman board game

a large goat with grey fur and large horns

Ireland’s native goats date back to Bronze Age

By Laura Baisas

Black and white photo of Iron Age mass grave bones in Serbia

One of Europe’s largest Iron Age mass graves contains mostly women and children

A detailed, extreme close-up of an emu's head and neck against its own feathered body. The emu has a sharp, dark beak and a striking, large orange eye. Its head is covered in fine, black wiry feathers, while the thick, gray and black plumage of its body creates a textured, blurred background.

Emus once faced down the Australian army—and won

Crane placing final part of cross atop Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona, Spain

After 144 years, world’s tallest church finally finishes exterior

The Adorant figurine from Geißenklösterle Cave, approximately 38,000 years old, consists of a small ivory plate bearing an anthropomorphic figure and multiple sequences of notches and dots. The application of these marks suggests a notational system, most notably in the rows of dots on the back of the plate.

Earliest known writing dates back over 40,000 years

Hands holding a camera that is housed inside a cigarette case

KGB cigarette pack spy camera still works (sort of)

Silicon Landscapes is a collage of circuit boards interwoven with aerial photographs of water treatment facilities, agricultural lands, industrial sites and mining machinery. It represents the resource-intensive material realities of AI systems transforming the natural landscapes through extractivist processes.

The Internet Archive records its 1 trillionth website

An 1870 sepia-toned photograph of Crawford Market in Mumbai, featuring its prominent stone clock tower and Gothic-style architecture with arched windows. In the foreground, people walk along a dirt road near a horse-drawn carriage and a vintage street lamp.

The history of clocks is one of tyranny and revolution

Clay footprint in Scottish beach sand

Dog walkers find 2,000-year-old footprints on beach in Scotland

Magnifying glass resting in open dictionary

Groovy! Dive into the world’s largest online slang dictionary

A colorized historical photograph of a woman in a white coat holding Simon, a black and white tuxedo cat who served as a celebrated ship's cat in the British Royal Navy. The cat wears a pink collar with a name tag, and both the woman and the cat are positioned in front of a dark window.

The tiny tuxedo cat who became a naval hero

Tiny Macintosh model computer built into toy novelty clock

Hobbyist builds retro Apple Macintosh inside toy clock

a tunnel under roman ruins

Inside the Colosseum’s Passage of Commodus, where emperors once walked

By Margherita Bassi

19th century Japanese coin in metal detectorist's hand

Metal detectorist finds 19th century Japanese coin in Australia

Stirling, Scotland - August 1, 2020, old medieval cemetery around Port of Menteith Parish Church

Medieval elite still received fancy burials despite disease stigma

Bow drill in action, New Kingdom tomb painting from Western Thebes, Tomb of Rekhmire, object 31.6.25, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain

Forgotten hand tool rewrites ancient Egyptian history

Candidates for Luna 9's landing site. Credit: Pinault et al.

Astronomers close in on long-lost Soviet lunar lander

Scans of severed skull fragments from Iberian Peninsula

Severed head rituals were more widespread in Iron Age Iberia than we thought

A colorized historical photograph showing a group of men in traditional Middle Eastern attire, including robes and turbans, gathered at an outdoor coffee house. On the left, a man in a white robe stands behind a counter featuring a large, ornate metal coffee urn. To the right, several other men are seated around a small table, engaged in conversation, reflecting the long history of coffee as a social staple.

4 times drinking coffee was illegal—or even punishable by death

Antique film camera on stack of black and white pictures

$13 thrift store camera hid 70-year-old undeveloped film

An artistic, mixed-media digital collage of an early twentieth-century electric vehicle, specifically a Woods Motor Vehicle Company car. The car is rendered in shades of purple and pink against a textured yellow background that looks like crumpled paper. The image features playful, hand-drawn scribbles in red and black, including the words "VROOM VROOM" and "LET'S RIDE!" near the front wheel. The car itself has a tall, carriage-like cabin with large windows and thin, spoked wheels highlighted with glowing pink circles. Decorative red loops and lines are sketched around the rear of the vehicle to suggest motion.

In 1916, hybrid cars could’ve changed history. But Ford wouldn’t allow it.

By Bill Gourgey

05 September 2020, Saxony-Anhalt, Halberstadt: Soprano Johanna Vargas (l) and composer Julian Lembke (r) use the organ pipes. Since 2001 the organ has been playing the music piece "ORGAN2/ASLSP" by John Cage without interruption. It is said to last 639 years. On Saturday, September 5, 2020, the 14th sound change of the John Cage Organ Art Project Halberstadt has been completed. In addition to the previous five pipes c'(16'), des'(16'), dis', ais' and e'', there are two new pipes g sharp and e. The next sound lasts until February 5, 2022. Then the g sharp will be dropped again. If everything goes as planned, the performance of the piece will last until the year 2640 Photo: Matthias Bein/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa (Photo by Matthias Bein/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Pipe organ plays single song for 639 years

Various angles of silver pendant with Roman gem inlay next to measurement references

Metal detectorist finds medieval pendant with a Roman ‘secret’

A young groundhog and its mother lounging in the tall green grass

Groundhogs don’t poop during hibernation and 6 other random facts

By Laura Baisas

Declaration of Independence broadside

Rare copy of Declaration of Independence going to auction

A vintage-style colorized portrait of a middle-aged man with light hair combed back, wearing a blue suit jacket, white shirt, and dark tie. He faces the camera with a neutral expression. The background is a uniform, grainy gray, and the image retains visible texture and noise consistent with an old printed photograph.

The only person to win an Olympic medal and a Nobel Peace Prize

By Amy Crawford

State park official on beach next to 19th century shipwreck wood

Winter storms uncover 19th-century shipwreck on New Jersey beach

A full-length color photograph of a young woman figure skating on an outdoor ice rink. She is wearing a pale green long-sleeved skating dress and white skates, captured in a graceful pose with her arms extended and one leg trailing behind her. The background features a tall, modern office building, bare trees, and a mountain range under a pale sky, reflecting a mid-century winter aesthetic.

From bones to steel: Why ice skates were a terrible idea that worked

Scene from Bayeux tapestry showing Halley's comet

Halley’s comet may need a new, medieval name

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