The Past

In the perilous mountains of Tibet, archaeologists unearthed ancient hand and footprints that seem to be the creative work of children.

The peasant turned czarist advisor has come to be known and feared as the devil incarnate, but was he really as demonic as we have been led to believe?

Whenever the climate cooled, our hominin ancestors would set up shop in the Arabian Peninsula and vanish again when the planet warmed up.

What we can learn from our complicated relationship with boredom.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is often labeled a quintessential Spanish artist, but his allegiance may well have lied with the French Enlightenment instead.

Searching for happiness in the midst of personal or societal crises are nothing new.

How the British obsession with tea triggered wars, led to bizarre espionage, and changed the world — many times.

Before it fueled Woodstock and the Summer of Love, LSD was brought to America to make spying easier.

In ancient Greece, the Olympics were never solely about the athletes themselves.

Long before Alexandria became the center of Egyptian trade, there was Thônis-Heracleion. But then it sank.

From “mutilated males” to “wandering wombs,” dodgy science affects how we view the female body still today.

Smallpox was nothing new in 1721.

For decades, researchers have proposed that climate change and human-caused environmental destruction led to demographic collapse on Easter Island. That’s probably false, according to new research.

Discovering fossilized insects is difficult, but a new find suggests a unique place to look.

A Nazi institute produced a Bible without the Old Testament that portrayed Jesus as an Aryan hero fighting Jewish people.

The skeleton of the world’s oldest known shark attack victim exhibits telltale wounds.

Can a war be won from the air? A group of renegade pilots in the 1930s thought so.

In 1933, the skull of a 50-year-old male of the Homo longi species was found in China, puzzling researchers.

When the mutual relatives of two royal families died, the countries were likelier to go to war.

The Bomber Mafia nearly changed the world—and you’ve likely never heard of them.

The Black Death wasn’t the only plague in the 1300s.

A school lesson leads to more precise measurements of the extinct megalodon shark, one of the largest fish ever.

Hippocrates overturned conventional wisdom and invented modern medicine.

Mastodons, rhinos, and even camels — all in the great state of California.

There were at least four major climate catastrophes that reshaped global religion. It could be happening again.

Linguists discover 30 sounds that may have allowed communication before words existed.

These Roman Emperors were infamous for their debauchery and cruelty.

As bad as this sounds, a new essay suggests that we live in a surprisingly egalitarian age.

How do archaeologists know if someone was buried intentionally tens of thousands of years ago?

The mummy was first thought to be a male priest. But a recent radiological analysis revealed a surprising anomaly.