history
Dante’s epic journey through hell and heaven reveal how the poet felt about his own country.
It’s like combining Google Translate with a time machine.
When you turn a map of East Asia upside down, Beijing’s geographic constraints and regional ambitions become much clearer.
A marine reptile fossil from Svalbard challenges ideas about evolution and Earth’s greatest mass extinction.
For better and worse, the Columbian Exchange plugged the Americas into the global system — and there was no going back.
They had the technology. So why didn’t they use it?
Due to export controls from China, the Europeans had to invent their own forms of porcelain. One type involves dead cows.
After Albert Einstein’s death in 1955, a pathologist—searching for the secret of genius—removed, dissected, and ultimately stole the mathematician’s brain.
Is the vast “Khan Khentii Strictly Protected Area” the final resting place of Genghis Khan?
Take a closer look before judging a book by its title.
On the menu: stews, cheese, and fermented drinks.
An insect? A vermin? An unwanted animal? What in the world is Franz Kafka talking about?
More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
The documents that convicted the infamous traitor were all kept in this unassuming leather pouch.
Pessimism reigned supreme.
Walter Pitts rose from the streets to MIT, but couldn’t escape himself.
For linguists, the uniqueness of the Basque language represents an unsolved mystery. For its native speakers, long oppressed, it is a source of pride.
Centuries ago, the typical British coffeehouse was more like a “school without a master” than a place to grab a quick boost of caffeine.
At the turn of the millennium, a physicist fooled the global scientific community with the greatest discovery that never existed.
The Foo Fighters are at the dead center of the map, so all the other bands are happier, sadder, angrier, or hornier.
Mary Toft staged an elaborate hoax, but the pain was real.
We don’t know what causes Miyake events, but these great surges of energy can help us understand the past — while posing a threat to our future.
Before Rome was an empire, it was a republic. And before it was a republic, it was a kingdom ruled by seven mythical kings — some better than others.
The meaning of the cryptic text has eluded scholars for centuries. Their latest efforts include computational analyses seeking new insights into the medieval enigma.
Once a cosmopolitan faith, Islam valued intellectualism and modernity. It was derailed by various geopolitical and religious forces.
A new book by historian and author Paul Strathern argues that the Northern European Renaissance has long been overlooked.
Bram Stoker’s mother survived a terrible cholera outbreak and recounted the ghastly scenes to her son years later.
