An unexpected finding shows us how little we know about the early human story in our region.

Fossilized footprints found at an excavation site in southwest New Mexico prove humans colonized the continent much earlier than previously thought.

In the perilous mountains of Tibet, archaeologists unearthed ancient hand and footprints that seem to be the creative work of children.

American and French troops turned capturing Hitler’s chalet into a game.

The Russian writer’s scorn went beyond a difference in taste; Leo Tolstoy virulently hated everything Shakespeare had come to stand for.

This is a time for family and friends to gather, watch the full moon and eat mooncakes and other delicacies.

Which philosopher had the strongest arguments? David Hume, who raised some of the best challenges for science, ethics, and religion.

From "shell shock" to "combat fatigue," the wars of the past century have violently illuminated the power trauma can wield over the mind and body.

How do you recover after an economic apocalypse? It is not what you know, but who you know.

The peasant turned czarist advisor has come to be known and feared as the devil incarnate, but was he really as demonic as we have been led to believe?

The question of anti-Semitism, Nazism, and a particularly nasty sibling haunted Nietzsche's legacy.

All of these conflicts have a long history. They may also have a long future.

From corrupt czars to bloodthirsty Bolsheviks, Russia has had no shortage of bad leaders. But just how evil were they really?

From the Notre Dame to Buddhist statues, dozens of irreplaceable artifacts are destroyed every year by both man and nature.

Hindsight is 20/20, particularly when you have had 20 years to think about what happened.

Whenever the climate cooled, our hominin ancestors would set up shop in the Arabian Peninsula and vanish again when the planet warmed up.

Once limited in range, mass hysteria can now spread across the globe in an instant.

This short story is a fictional account of two very real people — Anaximander and Anaximenes, two ancient Greeks who tried to make sense of the universe.

Esoteric evidence points to a ritual performed by Queen Elizabeth's court magician John Dee.

What we can learn from our complicated relationship with boredom.

A black swan event is rare but disruptive — and might be predictable.

Philosophers and scientists spent millennia arguing about the nature of light. It turned out to be stranger than anyone imagined.

Paradoxically, we lose wars because the world is peaceful and the U.S. is powerful.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is often labeled a quintessential Spanish artist, but his allegiance may well have lied with the French Enlightenment instead.

A 2020 study has revived a longstanding controversy over Christopher Columbus' claims of marauding cannibals in the Caribbean.

Searching for happiness in the midst of personal or societal crises are nothing new.

Birthrates are cyclical and have gone up and down throughout history.

Instead of just Afghanistan, the U.S. military ought to withdraw from the entire Middle East and much of the rest of the world.

Does history have a grand narrative, or is it just a random walk to no place in particular? And is the world as we know it about to change?

Our chart shows new additions since 1984 that have stuck around.