When Alexander von Humboldt (right) traveled to England in 1790, he met a young chemist named James Smithson, the founder of the Smithsonian. Humboldt's influence still resonates throughout the ...

Frederic Edwin Church, The Natural Bridge, Virginia, 1852, oil on canvas, 28 x 23 in. The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, Gift of Thomas Fortune Ryan. “Alexander von Humboldt and ...

“I’ll take Alexander von Humboldt for $500, Alex.” Katie Hondorf Celebrated for his vast knowledge, competitive nature, and humble personality, Ken Jennings is known to millions as a game show ...

His contemporaries considered Alexander von Humboldt the most famous man in the world after Napoleon, and Thomas Jefferson called him “one of the greatest ornaments of the age.” There are more plants, ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland at the foot of the Chimborazo volcano, painting by Friedrich Georg Weitsch (1810).

Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. Today, in search of a way through a constantly expanding morass of ...

The father of nature writing, intrepid explorer, friend to revolutionaries and US presidents, Alexander von Humboldt was the original scholar adventurer. Fearlessly footloose and boundlessly curious, ...

Alexander von Humboldt was born on September 14, 1769. In his day, he was a globetrotting, convention-defying hero — one of the first recorded individuals to raise environmental concerns. To make him ...

We have all read about famous scientists who helped to shape and steer our knowledge of the world. Back in the 19th century, there were the likes of Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Thomas Edison, ...

Packing his bags before his voyage on the Beagle in 1831, and knowing space was tight in his small cabin, Charles Darwin asked the captain if he could take Alexander von Humboldt’s “Personal Narrative ...

A scene from Andrea Wulf’s new book “The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt,” which depicts how Alexander von Humboldt was able to obtain electric eels to study their leaping attack behavior.