WEIRD HISTORY
By Michael Irving – An artist’s rendering of West Antarctica, which would have been a swampy forest around 90 million years ago. Alfred-Wegener-Institut, James McKay/CC-BY 4.0. – It’s hard to imagine Antarctica as anything other than a freezing lifeless landscape, but that wasn’t always …
Crinolines, by design, made physical contact nearly impossible. Hulton Archive/Stringer via Getty Images. – By Einav Rabinovitch-Fox, Visiting Assistant Professor, Case Western Reserve University – As the world grapples with the coronavirus outbreak, “social distancing” has become a buzzword of these strange times. …
By Dave Smith – Updated 2020 Feb 06 – It’s incredible to imagine, but some small countries in all corners of the globe used to be capitals of mighty empires that controlled continents or swaths of land. There are a lot of remnants of …
By Stephan Roget – Updated 2019 Dec 08 – History can change in an instant. A wrong turn, an off-the-cuff statement, or a single shot can forever alter the course of the world and the people in it. Sometimes, history can be …
By Setareh Janda – Updated 2018 Oct 13 – Who was Hedy Lamarr? In the heyday of Old Hollywood, she was one of the most beautiful women in the world. Hedy Lamarr movies were as popular as they were successful. Her breathtaking …
OK is an editorial joke run wild. (Photo: ClassicStock/Corbis) – By Rachel Nuwer – SmithsonianMag.Com – “OK” is one of the most common words in the English language, but linguistically it’s a relative newbie. It’s just 150 years old, and traces its roots …
By Joanna Gillan – 2019 Jun 17 – We British are used to women commanders in war; I am descended from mighty men! But I am not fighting for my kingdom and wealth now. I am fighting as an ordinary person for my …
By April Holloway – 2014 Sep 13 – (Also Read Part 1 ) Queen Boudicca had every reason to hate the Romans – by 60 AD, the lands of the Iceni clan of Britain had been captured, her people had been killed or …
By John Black – 2018 Dec 31 – This is the account of the discovery of a skull that has the potential to change what we know about human evolution, and a suppression and cover-up which followed. In 1959, in an area called …
By B.A. Robinson – Origins of the name “Easter”: The name “Easter” originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE), a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after …
