Smart News History & Archaeology

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This Is What the World Looked Like the Last Time the Cubs Won the World Series

Here are 10 ways life was different in 1908

The Warryti Rock Shelter in the Flinders Range

Cool Finds

Aboriginal Australians Lived In Country's Interior 10,000 Years Earlier Than Thought

Excavations at a rock shelter in the Flinders Range shows people were there 49,000 years ago, hunting megafauna and developing new tools

A 1933 Oil painting of the ill-fated aviator by Howard Chandler Christy.

Cool Finds

What to Make of Renewed Claims That Amelia Earhart Died as a Castaway

Reexamination of data from a 1940 skeleton, suggests that the long forearms may match those of the missing aviator

Argentinians look on as Marta Minují's 1983 Parthenon of books is removed with a crane. The artist will recreate her installation on a grander scale in Germany next year.

Cool Finds

An Artist Is Building a Parthenon of Banned Books

More than 100,000 books will become a monument to intellectual freedom in Germany next year

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Why We Call the Axis Powers the Axis Powers

On this day in 1936, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini declared an axis between Berlin and Rome, coining a term that would be used by both sides in WWII

The Papal Palace of Castel Gandolfo sits atop a hillside overlooking Lake Alban.

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Pope Francis Isn’t Using His Summer House, so the Vatican Is Letting the Public in

Get a rare look at the pope’s luxurious vacation home

One of the world's oldest-known carvings of the Ten Commandments will soon go up for auction.

Cool Finds

The Oldest-Known Carving of the 10 Commandments Is Going up for Auction

But the buyer won’t be able to take it home

The Edicule which houses the remains of Jesus' tomb

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Walls of "Jesus' Tomb" Exposed for the First Time in Centuries

During repair work, archaeologists removed the marble slabs that covered the walls of the limestone cave where Jesus was purportedly laid after crucifixion

Cool Finds

Are You Descended From Witches? New Digital Document Could Help You Find Out

The Wellcome Library manuscript lists people accused of witchcraft during the Scottish witch panic of 1658-1662

These daisy wheels were found in Saxon Tithe barn in Bradford-on-Avon.

Cool Finds

Join an English Scavenger Hunt for Spooky, Supernatural Scratches

"Witch marks" are all over old buildings in England—and this Halloween, a preservation group is calling on the public to help document them

Scientists are using genetic sequencing to reconstruct how AIDS hit the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.

New Research

Genetic Sleuthing Clears 'Patient Zero' of Blame for U.S. AIDS Epidemic

Scientists debunk the myth of the man once thought to have brought the virus to the states

Girls are saying "let it go" to princess costumes in favor of superheroes.

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Kids Ditch Princess Costumes in Favor of Superheroes This Halloween

For the first time in over a decade, princesses falter on the charts

Christopher Isherwood and poet W.H. Auden (right) were romantic partners, but their sexual relationship in the 1930s was punishable by criminal prosecution in England.

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New U.K. Law That Would Pardon Gay Men Once Convicted of Sex Crimes Fails in Parliament

The private member's bill will not go ahead

Weeping Window will travel throughout the U.K. through 2018.

Europe

How the Poppy Came to Symbolize World War I

Red blooms help the world commemorate a bloody war

Cool Finds

What to Know About NASA's Historic Astronaut Beach House

The famous bungalow is on track to be repaired by 2018 when SpaceX is hoped to launch humans into space once again

President Barack Obama and Republican Party nominee Mitt Romney broke bread at the 2012 Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner.

Trending Today

The History of Presidential Politics' Most Important Dinner Date

For decades, the Al Smith Dinner has helped Catholic voters dine and decide

The Swedish count Philip Königsmarck, left, and his lover Sophia Dorothea, right. A skeleton possibly belonging to Königsmarck was recently uncovered in the German castle where he disappeared.

Cool Finds

A Skeleton Found in a Castle Could Be the Key to Cracking a 17th-Century Cold Case

A murder mystery complete with royal intrigue

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Archaeologists Detect Two Previously Unknown Cavities Beneath Giza’s Great Pyramid

But don't get too excited just yet

The Great Hall of the People in Beijing is now on a 20th-century cultural preservation list in China.

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China Now Has a 20th-Century Architectural Heritage List

A country with an uneasy relationship to its past will preserve 98 buildings of the 20th century for future generations

Protestors at Tiananmen Square in 1989

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China Will Finally Release the Last Tiananmen Square Prisoner

Miao Deshun has been in prison for the majority of his life

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