World History

A gala celebrated the opening of “Sade: Marquis of the Shadows, Prince of the Enlightment” at the Museum of Letters and Manuscripts.

Who Was the Marquis de Sade?

Even in the age of <i>Fifty Shades of Grey</i>, the 18th-century libertine is as shocking as ever

The scales on Fragment C divide the year by days and signs of the zodiac.

Decoding the Antikythera Mechanism, the First Computer

Hidden inscriptions offer new clues to the origins of a mysterious astronomical mechanism

History’s most impressive hoard of ancient Greek artifacts includes numerous amphoras, terra-cotta lamps, glass vessels, coins, jewelry and statues.

Exploring the Titanic of the Ancient World

Scientists search the wine-dark sea for the remains of a ship that sank 2,000 years ago—carrying what is believed to be the world’s first computer

A New View of the Battle of Gallipoli, One of the Bloodiest Conflicts of World War I

The Turks are now rethinking their historic victory in the terrible battle

Zhao Hua Hong is one of the last living foot-binding practitioners.

Why Footbinding Persisted in China for a Millennium

Despite the pain, millions of Chinese women stood firm in their devotion to the tradition

A closeup of a Herculaneum papyrus scroll used in an international scanning project.

Ancient Scrolls Blackened by Vesuvius Are Readable at Last

X-ray scans can just tease out letters on the warped documents from a library at Herculaneum

Bound for Morotai Island, Private Bryan Carroll, Memphis, TN, relaxes on the deck of an LST with a book. He leans on a pile of his belongings, which include his helmet and mess kit.

How Books Became a Critical Part of the Fight to Win World War II

Author Molly Guptill Manning explains the importance of reading to the American victory

London Mayor Boris Johnson released his book, The Churchill Factor, in November 2014.

London Mayor Boris Johnson on Winston Churchill's Cheekiest Quotes

London's mayor talks about his new Churchill biography, 50 years after the British Bulldog's death

Segah, a male belly dancer, performs in a gaudy nightclub off Istanbul's Istiklal Street

Inside the World of Istanbul's Male Belly Dancers

The nation’s shifting views toward homosexuality have opened the market for a centuries-old tradition

An illustration based on Livingstone's materials depicts the famous meeting of Livingston and Stanley at Ujiji, Lake Tanganyika in Africa.

Decoding the Lost Diary of David Livingstone

Modern technology allowed researchers to reveal that the good doctor was not all that the public presumed

The Controversial Afterlife of King Tut

A frenzy of conflicting scientific analyses have made the famous pharaoh more mysterious than ever

Window at Chartres Cathedral.

Why Colors You See in an Art Museum Can’t Be Replicated Today

A look into the history of the pigments used in spectacular art

A quarantine official at Beijing's international airport stands behind a banner notifying incoming passengers from West Africa' to use a specific lane

The Long History of Disease and the Fear of the “Other”

Reactionary quarantines and travel bans are far older than the current Ebola scares

An East German family watches and waits to cross into West Berlin. This photo, like so many others here, I found in a reject box, after many years

Amazing, Rare Photographs of the Berlin Wall Coming Down

Photojournalist Alexandra Avakian traveled to Berlin based on rumor, and she ended up becoming a witness to history

A woman crawls through Tunnel 57 to escape East Germany.

The Story of the Most Successful Tunnel Escape in the History of the Berlin Wall

An abandoned bakery, some shovels and a few buckets were all it took for a few university students to defy the symbolic barrier of the Cold War

Halloween party in Bristol.

Halloween

How Halloween Has Taken Over England

The British have long celebrated Guy Fawkes Day on November 5, but now the October 31 holiday is a lot more appealing.

The image of a witch brewing her cauldron reigns in Halloween celebrations today. But, what actually went into witches cauldrons?

Halloween

How Witches' Brews Helped Bring Modern Drugs to Market

Got nausea, headaches or heart trouble? You can thank medieval witches’ potions for helping to cure what ails you

Turn of the century thespians play their roles wearing Roman togas.

Halloween

No Costume? Grab A Sheet And Rock a Toga

Costume designer Mariah Hale explains how to wrap the perfect last-minute toga

A shrine marking London's Cross Bones Graveyard.

Halloween

The London Graveyard That’s Become a Memorial for the City’s Seedier Past

Thousands of bodies from London’s first red light district are buried beneath a lot in the South Bank, an area under massive redevelopment

Some argue that the recent civil war in Syria was caused, at least in part, by droughts in the area, which led to greater social instability.

Anthropocene

Five Conflicts and Collapses That May Have Been Spurred by Climate Change

Earth's changing climate has been a spectre in centuries of civil conflict and, at times, the collapse of whole civilizations

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