The Past

The carnival spirit was in full swing when the priests got wasted and made indecent gestures while dressed like pimps.

Science fiction met nuclear fission when Hungarian physicist Leó Szilárd pondered the explosive potential of nuclear energy.

Hybrid animals emerge when two different species from the same family reproduce. For many years, the kunga’s lineage was just another genetic mystery. 

In numerous cultures worldwide, women were just as involved in bringing home the prehistoric bacon as their male counterparts.

Throughout history, hundreds — sometimes thousands — of people have been spontaneously compelled to dance until collapsing or dying from exhaustion. What explains this bizarre phenomenon?

The answer largely centers on crops and cows.

Felicia had a job to do.

Roosevelt had become president but not in the way he wanted. Still, he understood that he had been given the rare opportunity to make history.

Perhaps there was something theatrically satisfying about a learned man waving around a flask of pee, looking at it from all angles, sniffing it, and making bold proclamations.

People discovered prehistoric fossils long before Charles Darwin published “On the Origin of Species.” The remains of these unknown creatures often puzzled their discoverers.

A marine reptile fossil from Svalbard challenges ideas about evolution and Earth’s greatest mass extinction.

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.

On the menu: stews, cheese, and fermented drinks.

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.

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.

Mary Toft staged an elaborate hoax, but the pain was real.

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.

Evolutionary pressures drove the formation of tribes who encoded their values in myths and symbols. Was this cooperation cursed?

Before Constantine received his history-defining vision, a pagan Sun god paved the way for Jesus Christ’s triumphal entry into the Eternal City.

Would you confess your crimes to a skeleton with “an unnatural ghastly glow”? One inventor thought you would.

Mansa Musa, perhaps history’s richest man, claims he ascended the throne of Mali after his predecessor sailed west and never came back. Could he have made it to the New World?

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

The Source Family, a radical 1970s utopian commune, still impacts what we eat today.