WEIRD HISTORY
Franklin’s lifelong quest was spreading scientific knowledge to regular people. Mason Chamberlin, CC BY – By Carla J. Mulford, Professor of English, Pennsylvania State University – By the time he was 20 years old, colonial American Benjamin Franklin had already spent two years …
Alexander von Humboldt – self-portrait. – By Richard Gunderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University – Alexander von Humboldt sought to see and understand everything. By the time he drew his self-portrait at age 45, Humboldt had tutored himself …
Archaeologists excavating at the famous Boxgrove site in England have identified horse bone tools, the earliest bone tools ever discovered in the history of European archaeology. There are scraping marks due to the way the tool was prepared, and pitting marks due to …
National parks across the country preserve and share stories of trailblazing women who dared to imagine a different future. – The 19th Amendment – Tucked away behind the U.S. Capitol and across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court sits a historic building …
The inventor at rest, with a Tesla coil (thanks to a double exposure). Dickenson V. Alley, Wellcome Collection, CC BY – By Richard Gunderman, Chancellor’s Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University Updated 2020 Aug 14 – Match the following figures …
Composer Edmund Hunt leads effort to examine sonic footprints of Vikings and Celts. TV shows such as Vikings captivate modern audiences, but history does not record exactly what Vikings sounded like. Photograph: Allstar/MGM/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar – By Rory Carroll Ireland correspondent @rorycarroll72 Last modified …
Its makers describe The Rig as being “Not a Wheelchair” – NotAWheelchair.Com – By Ben Coxworth 2020 Aug 17 – Just because someone has limited mobility, does that mean they should be limited to traversing smooth pavement? Not according to husband-and-wife team Zack and …
Archaeologists found the charred bones of a young adult in the ancient Israeli village of Beisamoun. The charred shoulder blade of a young adult who was cremated in northern Israel some 9,000 years ago. The bone contains the embedded point of a flint …
Vintage woman – Shutterstock – By Debra Kelly/Updated: 2020 Jul 14 – History is filled with episodes that prove mankind is just sort of making everything up as it goes. There’s no shortage of things that can kill us or do horrible, terrible …
Anti-suffrage leaders at a picnic event on 1913 May 30. – Opinion by Nicole Hemmer Updated 2020 Aug 07 – Nicole Hemmer is an associate research scholar at Columbia University with the Obama Presidency Oral History Project and the author of “Messengers of …
