WEIRD HISTORY
What she found in a tiny crevice in Gypsum Cave rewrote the history of humans in North America. By Ashley Marranzino, Marine Biology, University of Rhode Island – In the desert near Las Vegas, Nevada, Bertha Parker completed her daily tasks of cooking, cleaning, …
Unalaska Island in the remote Aleutian archipelago was part of an epic, but now mostly forgotten, military campaign during World War II. By John Zada – A remote outpost Situated where the northern Pacific Ocean meets the Bering Sea, the remote US …
Native Americans, English sailors and pirates all came together on Ocracoke Island in North Carolina to create the only American dialect that is not identified as American. By Brian Carlton – (This year, we published many inspiring and amazing stories that made us …
By Mike Rothschild – It’s time to find the real stories behind Christmas legends and holiday myths. With over 2,000 years of history, the Christmas holiday comes with a host of myths, legends, lies, misconceptions, and commonly believed things that are just …
By Anthony Wood – A reconstruction of the ancient female, based on DNA extracted from ancient birch pitch. Illustration by Tom Björklund. – Scientists have successfully extracted a complete human genome from a 5,700-year-old piece of “chewing gum” that was discovered in southern …
The mythical holiday beast is once again on the prowl, but beware, he’s making his way across the Atlantic A man dressed in a traditional Perchten costume and mask performs during a Perchten festival in the western Austrian village of Kappl, November 13, …
The finding bolsters the idea that even 44,000 years ago, artistic ingenuity was shaping cultures across the Eurasian continent. Six humanoid figures with animal features surround an anoa, a small type of buffalo, in a 44,000-year-old Indonesian cave mural. (Ratno Sardi). By Katherine …
Archaeologists now can more closely date when the religion spread to the Aksumite Empire. At an archaeological site in Ethiopia, researchers are uncovering the oldest Christian basilica in sub-Saharan Africa. (Ioana Dumitru). By Andrew Lawler Smithsonian.Com – In the dusty highlands of northern …
During World War II, the stalls served as rendezvous points for French Resistance fighters. Photographer Charles Marville captured this snapshot of an open-air urinal with three stalls in 1865. Public domain. By Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian.Com – To keep precious military intel …
“Faceless” Indus Valley City Puzzles Archaeologists. Mohenjo Daro 101 By John Roach – A well-planned street grid and an elaborate drainage system hint that the occupants of the ancient Indus civilization city of Mohenjo Daro were skilled urban planners with a reverence for …