Though John Adams was old and ill when he died, the curious timing of his demise sparked countless unusual theories.

Archaeologists in Virginia have discovered the 18th-century foundation that once held the historic Williamsburg Bray School, the oldest known schoolhouse for Black children in America. Unearthed at ...

Although many in the modern day associate the Soviet Union with Russia, it was one of the world’s largest multi-ethnic states, comprised of 15 republics. The Soviet Union’s first census, conducted in ...

Caesar’s adopted son and heir Octavian ultimately emerged victorious in the ensuing power struggles, and in 27 B.C.E., he took the new name Augustus and became Rome’s first emperor. With that, the ...

The furry creature doesn’t look quite camera-ready. Its snout is raised as if it’s sniffing the air, and its eyes are glazed and bright. It’s no wonder why the tiny California mammal appears so ...

The Ark of the Covenant is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus, when God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites to build an ark (a chest) out of “acacia wood” that is “two and a half cubits long, a ...

Tickling may seem like a harmless and playful act, but it actually has a long and complex history that stretches across different cultures and eras. Its ability to immobilize and cause discomfort has ...

To understand how dragons have become so pervasive, we should first look at some specific examples of cultures that believed in dragons throughout history. In China and the British Isles, for instance ...

Shortly after midnight on April 15, 1912, Harold Cottam, the telegraph operator of the RMS Carpathia, idly decided to call the RMS Titanic. His shift was over, but he wanted to alert his counterparts ...

The story of the 79 C.E. Mount Vesuvius eruption actually began about 300,000 years ago, when the volcano first began to form. In the millennia leading up to the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum ...

While the Los Angeles Mafia never rose to the same notoriety as its counterparts in New York and Chicago, the crime family infiltrated Hollywood, had a hand in the growth of Las Vegas, and terrorized ...

This painstaking process also produced a terrible, overwhelming stench similar to rotting fish and urine. But for dye makers, the rewards far outweighed the costs. Though it could take 10,000 snails ...