Even More Vicious Than Marie Antoinette's Death Were the Songs About It
Few women in history have inspired as many myths as Marie-Antoinette, the last queen of France, typically portrayed as the embodiment of excess and debauchery. Many of those myths are based on the vicious and often pornographic Revolutionary propaganda that poured from French ...read more
Massive Viking Ship Found in Shallow Burial in Norway
A massive Viking ship has been found in Norway less than two feet below the Earth’s surface. Archaeologists at the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) made the discovery using radar designed to permeate the ground without actually excavating any artifacts. ...read more
7 Surprising Facts about Royal Births
Royal watchers around the world were thrilled with the announcement that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are expecting a child in the spring of 2019.The news, issued by Kensington Palace, came five months after the royal pair's wedding at Windsor ...read more
These World War II Propaganda Posters Rallied the Home Front
When Britain and France went to war with Germany in 1939, Americans were divided over whether to join the war effort. It wouldn't be until the surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that the United States would be thrust into World War II. Once U.S. ...read more
The Romanov Family Tree: Real Descendants and Wannabes
On the night of July 16, 1918, a Bolshevik assassination squad executed Czar Nicholas II, his wife, Alexandra, and their five children, putting an end to the Romanov family dynasty that had ruled Russia for more than three centuries. The murder of the Romanovs stamped out the ...read more
Volcanic Ash at Pompeii Froze This Beautiful, 2,000-Year-Old Shrine in Time
Archaeologists have discovered an elaborate, perfectly preserved shrine in the wall of a house in Pompeii, the ancient Roman city on Italy’s western coast that was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago by the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius. As many as 30,000 people are believed to ...read more
Why Some Mexican Americans Fought for the Confederacy
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, there were tens of thousands of Mexican Americans living in California, Texas and the New Mexico territory; all former parts of Mexico that the U.S. had claimed in the 1840s. With the wounds of the Mexican-American War fresh, these Mexican ...read more
Human Sacrifice: Why the Aztecs Practiced This Gory Ritual
When the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men arrived in the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán in 1521, they described witnessing a grisly ceremony. Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their ...read more
The Apollo Mission That Nearly Ended With a Mutiny in Space
By 1968, America’s space program was on the brink. A launchpad fire at Cape Canaveral killed three astronauts as they were conducting tests in their space capsule in January 1967. After 20 months of congressional hearings, political fallout and a spacecraft redesign, three new ...read more
These 10 Controversial Artworks Enraged People Long Before Banksy
Artists throughout history have never shied away from controversy—in fact, many even try to court infamy. (Need proof? Just look at Banksy, the anonymous street artist who recently created a work that self-destructed the moment it was sold at auction—for a ...read more
Striking Photos of Classical Greek Architecture
Ancient Greek ruins that survive today are among the most iconic landmarks in the world. Grand structures like the Acropolis in Athens are a testament to a culture defined by advancement and innovation, especially in art and architecture.In the middle of 5th ...read more
How an Ex-KKK Member Made His Way Onto the U.S. Supreme Court
During his time on the Supreme Court, Justice Hugo Black voted to desegregate schools, expand freedom of the press and help protect housing options for minorities. He was also a former member of the Ku Klux Klan.While Black’s liberal leanings during this New Deal era, would not ...read more
How Sexual Assault Has Been Portrayed—or Erased—Throughout History
Nearly as long as people have been recording history, they have documented sexual assaults. From the writings of ancient Greece to the Bible to the letters of early explorers, sexual violence has long been a brutal part of the human story. Some assaults have even changed the ...read more
The 1994 Midterms: When Newt Gingrich Helped Republicans Win Big
A balanced budget amendment. Tax cuts. Welfare reform. Those were just three of the 10 points of the Contract with America, Newt Gingrich's conservative plan, signed by 300-plus Republican candidates and presented at a press conference just six weeks before the 1994 midterm ...read more
The Dark Story of How Scientists Used Goats to Solve the Bends
When the autopsy was performed on the diver in 1900, they found bubbles in his brain and heart. There were so many bubbles, in fact, that when examiners lifted the heart, it gurgled with froth. The cause of death was decompression sickness. And while doctors knew the cause of ...read more