From the Age of Enlightenment to the Christmas Truce, learn about some of history's most pivotal events.
The Gold Rush-era Egg War of 1863 saw business competitors in San Francisco engage in lethal violence... over eggs?
Linguistic and cultural clues have long suggested Madagascar's prehistoric human settlers came from Southeast Asia, but now scientists have found physical proof.
A new exhibition creates exact replicas of cave art, found in a remote region along the Silk Road and spanning centuries, cultures and styles.
The presidential digs have housed more than a few untraditional pets through the years. Rebecca the Raccoon and Josiah the Badger are but two.
Identity errors have led to a range of awfulness, from lengthy prison sentences to the wrong person being declared dead.
Controversies surround not just the possible existence of hidden chambers, but even the ability of Egyptologists to undertake the search for them.
Mastodon remains and stone knives discovered in Florida show human activity predating the Clovis people, long thought to be the region's first human settlers.
On the first Sunday in October, a fountain in the Italian town of Marino flows with wine. One year, however, things didn't go as planned.
With oil prices dropping, a report showed some cargo ships found it cheaper to sail around South Africa, rather than paying $465,000 to go through the Suez Canal.
In 1835, a newspaper ran a series of articles on lunar discoveries, leading papers to fly off the shelf. There was just one problem.
A phone call from an early-1900s rural homestead was at the forefront of communications technology, and farms were the most networked communities of the time.
Imagine a researcher eavesdropping on your conversation from underneath your bed and recording it for an experiment. That really happened.
How to go from a Bible verse to carving canals with nukes in just a few easy steps — almost. Learn how operation plowshare worked at HowStuffWorks.
Think systemic racism was only a problem in the Southern slave states? Think again. It was alive and well in the Northwest, too. Is it still?
Imagine 2.3 million gallons of molasses pouring down city streets in a massive, lethal wave. That was the scene in Boston on January 15, 1919.
Mass hysteria epidemics are not as rare as you might think. They often occur in small, insular worlds like schools and factories where people feel stressed. We've got examples from the 16th century to the 21st.
In the mid-20th century, STDS were a big problem, and penicillin was a potential solution. In an experiment gone badly awry, U.S. scientists brought the two together.
The captivatingly realistic Roman-Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits date to more than 1,500 years before the Renaissance. Scientists used state-of-the-art analytical tools.
Under repressive regimes, teens still need their rock 'n' roll. What drastic measures did Soviets go to to create an underground vinyl record market?
A placid lake above a hydroelectric dam on the border of Brazil and Paraguay was once site of Guairá, among the world's most awe-inspiring. Why'd we get rid of it?
It's December 1915. San Diego is booming but its main reservoir is low when along comes a rainmaker by the name of Charles Mallory Hatfield.
A spying dolphin or a subversive squirrel may seem like far-fetched fiction, but animals have been employed by military forces for years.
Windows shattered, furniture broken, and dozens of cadets including Jefferson Davis nog-wild on smuggled booze. A "party" in 1826 nearly altered the course of history.
They may not seem stealthy to us, but back in World War I, zeppelins were airborne war machines. And some of them were made from cow intestines.
We think the Wild West was a big shoot-‘em-up, but statistically speaking, people of the wild frontier were more likely to encounter a handshake than a bullet.
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