Smart News History & Archaeology

The Beck’s Edison Bottle

Beer Bottle Meets 19th-Century Phonograph, Makes Beautiful Music

Engineers and music experts in New Zealand tinkered with the concepts behind Thomas Edison's original phonograph to make a beer bottle sing

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German’s Longest Word Is No More

Rechtsschutzversicherungsgesellschaften, or an insurance company that provides legal protection, is now the language's longest word

The Clovis people were known for their distinctive stone arrowheads.

How Two Retirees’ Amateur Archaeology Helped Throw Our View of Human History Into Turmoil

Through decades of excavation near their cottage Anton and Maria Chobot unearthed artifacts of the Clovis people

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Navy Dolphins Turn Up a Rare 19th-Century Torpedo

Called a Howell torpedo, the old military relic was a marvel in its day, and only 50 were ever made

The reconstructed face of Richard III

A Bust of Richard III, 3D-Printed From a Scan of His Recently Exhumed Skull

A forensic art team reconstructed Richard III's face

Another Mayan Ruin in Belize. Not the one that was destroyed.

Mayan Pyramid Destroyed to Get Rocks for Road Project

The construction company building the road appears to have extracted crushed rocks from the pyramid to use as road fill

The brighter colored and thicker lines indicate a higher bio-invasion risk.

Mapping the Routes of Invasive Stowaways

Singapore, Honk Kong, New York, Long Beach, CA, and the Panama and Suez canals are the areas most at risk from invasive species

Cavemen Used Some of the Same Words We Do

Our modern language still has some remnants of the grunting cavemen who came before us

Citizens of East Dennis, Massachusetts, filed this petition against the repeal of the Personal Liberty Laws in 1860.

African-Americans Sent Thousands of Anti-Slavery Petitions in the 18th and 19th Century

The petitions lend insight into the lives of African Americans during this tumultuous period in U.S. history, and now they're being digitized

The Wolfsschanze, or Wolf’s Lair, was Hitler’s bunker outside of Rastenburg, Germany.

Meet the Woman Who Taste-Tested Hitler’s Dinner

Now 95, Margot Woelk is ready to share her story of life in the Wolf's Lair

Native Australians, 1939

Ancient Australia’s First Settlers Probably Came There On Purpose

Rather some chance encounter with the continent down under, researchers think that the original migrants set out to deliberately colonize Australia

A tunnel excavation in Guatemala

Ancient Maya Were Cultural Sponges

Rather than the Maya influencing the Olmec or vice versus, similarities between their cultures represent a general shift in ancient Mesoamerica

A computer-generated image of how the woman would have appeared when she was first laid to rest.

Almost All That Remains of This Woman, Perhaps the First Queen of Windsor, Is Her Jewelry

Though her clothes long since decomposed and her bones are almost completely decayed, her lavish jewelry remains behind, giving hints to her identity

Chechnya, Dagestan, and the North Caucasus: A Very Brief History

Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hails from Dagestan, a war-torn Russian region in the North Caucasus.

In 1794, troops armed by the 1792 Militia Act partook in suppressing Pennsylvania’s Whiskey Rebellion.

A Georgia Town Is Requiring Gun Ownership. So Did the Founding Fathers.

A Georgia town may have just mandated gun ownership, but early Americans had the same idea back in 1792

Maybe Cleopatra Didn’t Commit Suicide

Her murder, one author thinks, was covered up behind a veil of propaganda and lies put forth by the Roman Empire

A map of the Mississippi Territory c. 1817

After 195 Years, Georgia Is Still Complaining About Its Border With Tennessee

Georgia, again, wants to move its border a mile to the north

Mussolini and Hitler in Munich in 1940.

Italian Dictator Mussolini’s Secret Bunker Unearthed

Hidden beneath the Palazzo Venezia, Benito Mussolini's World War II bunker

Workers clean the salvaged F-1 engine

An Apollo Rocket Engine Was Just Saved from the Bottom of the Atlantic

These booster rockets sent Apollo astronauts blasting to the Moon

Manet, Chez Tortoni, among one of the items stolen

After Twenty-Three Years, FBI Says It Finally Knows Who’s Responsible for the Largest Unsolved Art Heist Ever

Twenty three years ago today, thieves pulled off one of the greatest art heists in history - and the FBI might have just finally caught them

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