Smart News History & Archaeology

Cool Finds

Why People Call Apartments 'Pads'

The slang term has a sordid past

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Two French Towns Are Battling Over a Saint’s Remains

Should Saint Bernadette be laid to rest in the town she made famous…or the one she chose to live in?

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The Silk Road Never Really Existed

China is attempting to turn away from its isolated past with an immense new infrastructure project

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How to Become a Fossil in Five Easy Steps

Tricks to preserving your bones for future archaeologists

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Germany Just Opened a Nazi Museum in the Party's Former Headquarters

70 years later, Munich's mayor says the city is ready to "face up to its Nazi past"

Lenin's body in 1991. Thanks to the Lenin Lab, the corpse still looks virtually the same today.

Cool Finds

Meet the Group of Scientists That Keeps Lenin’s 90-Year-Old Corpse Fresh

90 years later, Vladimir Lenin’s body is still maintained by a Russian lab

Cool Finds

Paper Airplanes Flew Decades Before Real Ones Did

Kids have been folding paper so it flies since at least the mid-19th century

Cool Finds

How "Operation Mummy’s Curse" is Helping Fight Terrorism

Selling illicit relics is the third most profitable wing of the black market, after drugs and weapons

This 133-foot long wooden steamer, the Rising Sun, is in 6 to 12 feet of water just north of Pyramid Point, where she stranded on October 29, 1917. All 32 people on board were saved.

Cool Finds

In 2015, Lake Michigan Was So Clear Its Shipwrecks Were Visible From the Air

A Coast Guard patrol spotted the wrecks in shallow waters that are only clear after the lake's ice melts and before summer sediment swirls and algae blooms

The rubble of Dharahara Tower, which was once the tallest building in Nepal.

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Nepal Struggles With the Loss of Lives, Cultural Treasures After Earthquake

Historic sites were damaged and destroyed in the 7.8 quake

A giant rice rat specimen from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France

New Research

How Settlers Wiped Out the Caribbean’s Rodents of Unusual Size

The eradication of rice rats in the Lesser Antilles was part of a massive mammal extinction event

Cool Finds

How a Piano Dropped from a Helicopter Paved the Way For Woodstock

The Piano Drop set the stage for the outdoor rock festival

Illustration of a Greek vase shows Dionysus leading three revelers toward likely hangovers

Cool Finds

Recently Translated Papyrus Details 1,900-Year-Old Hangover Cure

Those disappointed by the effectiveness of this 1,900-year old remedy can instead peruse the eye surgery techniques in other ancient texts

Watercolor illustration of a pony express rider

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The Pony Express Was Short-Lived And Costly

The service only lasted 18 months, but became an important icon of the West

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New York City Ran a Slave Market

New marker will acknowledge the bustling slave trade that helped build New York

Urban Explorations

Tour the Theater Where Lincoln Was Assassinated on Google Street View

150 years later, a new view of Ford’s Theatre

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How Rum Helped the U.S. Win Its Independence

Rum may was a key player in America's revolutionary days

This pyramid in Lima, Peru was built by the Wari civilization, who pre-dated the Incas. Now Lima is proposing using another Wari innovation, a series of waterways called 'amunas,' to stem the city's ongoing water crisis.

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Ancient Tech Could Help Solve Lima’s Water Crisis

Turns out Peru’s Wari people were excellent urban planners...and their 1,500-year-old 'amunas' could soon bring water to Lima

New Research

Northern Europeans Were Not So Sold on Farming

A new study of ancient beads shows “an enduring cultural boundary” between northern and southern Europe during the Neolithic Age

Cool Finds

This Little Kid Discovered a Dinosaur

A rare nodosaur has been found in Texas...by a little boy

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