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Editors' Picks

For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II

In 1978, Soviet geologists prospecting in the wilds of Siberia discovered a family of six, lost in the taiga

Lost and Found Again: Photos of African-Americans on the Plains

What would otherwise be a local-interest story became a snapshot of history integral to the American experience

When Did Humans Come to the Americas?

Recent scientific findings date their arrival earlier than ever thought, sparking hot debate among archaeologists

History Beats

History & Archaeology

Page 9 of 57

Don’t Let Your Money Fly Away: A 1909 Warning to Airship Investors

Flying aboard aircraft? Just a passing fad
May 31, 2012 | By Matt Novak

Predictions for Educational TV in the 1930s

Before it became known as the "idiot box," television was seen as the best hope for bringing enlightenment to the American people
May 29, 2012 | By Matt Novak

“I Was Looking Forward to a Quiet Old Age”

Instead, Etta Shiber, a widow and former Manhattan housewife, helped smuggle stranded Allied soldiers out of Nazi-occupied in Paris
May 25, 2012 | By Karen Abbott

Big Things Ahead… But Keep Your Shirt On

Americans in the 1940s had wondrous expectations about the post-war world. Meet one author who advised them to curb their enthusiasm
May 25, 2012 | By Matt Novak

Pass it on: The Secret that Preceded the Indian Rebellion of 1857

British officials were alarmed at the rapid distribution of mysterious Indian breads across much of the Raj
May 24, 2012 | By Mike Dash

Mechanical Matchmaking: The Science of Love in the 1920s

Four "scientific" tests to determine whether your marriage will succeed or fail
May 23, 2012 | By Matt Novak

Team Hollywood’s Secret Weapons System

During World War II, Hedy Lamarr raised $7 million in one night by kissing war-bond buyers. But she and the Hollywood composer George Anthiel also designed a radical new torpedo-guidance system
May 23, 2012 | By Gilbert King

The original lifeboat, the James Caird, built in 1914, had an open top, exposing its inhabitants to the elements.

Reliving Shackleton's Epic Endurance Expedition

Tim Jarvis's Plan to Cross the Antarctic in an Exact Replica of the James Caird
May 22, 2012 | By K. Annabelle Smith

Washington DC burning

The 10 Things You Didn’t Know About the War of 1812

Why did the country really go to war against the British? Which American icon came out of the forgotten war?
May 22, 2012 | By Tony Horwitz and Brian Wolly

Maps of the Future

A 1989 prediction about portable GPS devices was right on the money
May 22, 2012 | By Matt Novak

A diorama at the River Raisin

The War of 1812: Remember the Raisin!

The war's battle cry, along with almost everything else about it, has been forgotten for far too long
June 2012 | By Tony Horwitz

Eat Here

Today's special: Our first annual food issue
June 2012 | By Michael Caruso

Chicken reigns in the 21st century.

How the Chicken Conquered the World

The epic begins 10,000 years ago in an Asian jungle and ends today in kitchens all over the world
June 2012 | By Jerry Adler and Andrew Lawler

Tripping Through the Cold War: Drug Warfare in the Retrofuture

Was LSD the Soviet Union's secret weapon?
May 18, 2012 | By Matt Novak

Hitler’s Very Own Hot Jazz Band

American troops tuning in to wartime German radio broadcasts found themselves listening to one of Hitler's strangest experiments: the swinging sounds and virulently pro-Nazi lyrics of Charlie and His Orchestra
May 17, 2012 | By Mike Dash

Sacrifice Amid the Ice: Facing Facts on the Scott Expedition

Captain Lawrence Oates wrote that if Robert Scott's team didn't win the race to the South Pole, "we shall come home with our tails between our legs." Actually, worse was in store
May 16, 2012 | By Gilbert King

Jobs of the Future: How Accurate Were the Soothsayers of 1982 At Predicting Today’s Top Careers?

College graduates take note: Your dream career as a robot psychologist or nasal technologist is just around the corner
May 15, 2012 | By Matt Novak

Julia Child

Julia Child's Recipe for a Thoroughly Modern Marriage

Food writer Ruth Reichl looks at the impact of the famous chef's partnership with her husband Paul
June 2012 | By Ruth Reichl

Howard Carter: Famous Archaeologist, Not-So-Famous Painter

Didn’t know he was an artist too? "Tut tut!"
May 09, 2012 | By K. Annabelle Smith

A Death at Home Plate

"Nobody ever remembers anything about me except one thing," Yankees pitcher Carl Mays would say. The circumstances surrounding his beaning of Ray Chapman made sure of that
May 09, 2012 | By Gilbert King

Egyptians embalming a corpse

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine

The question was not “Should you eat human flesh?” says one historian, but, “What sort of flesh should you eat?”
May 07, 2012 | By Maria Dolan

Khrushchev in Water Wings: On Mao, Humiliation and the Sino-Soviet Split

Angered by the way the Soviet Union treated him, Mao Zedong planned revenge on Nikita Khrushchev during the Soviet premier's 1958 visit to Beijing. Mao's weapon: a pool party.
May 04, 2012 | By Mike Dash

The Monument to Electricity That Never Was

In 1922, Hugo Gernsback envisioned a 1,000-foot tall concrete monument that "would be a lasting tribute to our race, and to the progress that is exemplified by Electricity"
May 03, 2012 | By Matt Novak

Hindenburg inquiry board

Document Deep Dive: A Firsthand Account of the Hindenburg Disaster

Frank Ward was a 17-year-old crewman when he saw the infamous disaster, but his memories of that day are still strong, 75 years later
May 02, 2012 | By Megan Gambino

Resurrecting the Dead With Computer Graphics

As computer graphics improved in the 1980s and 1990s, people imagined that actors like Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe and even a Laurence Olivier/Abraham Lincoln mash-up would star in the movies of tomorrow
April 30, 2012 | By Matt Novak

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