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Protesters occupied the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's regional offices in San Francisco for 26 days in 1977.

The Real Story Behind the 504 Sit-In for Disability Rights, the Longest Peaceful Occupation of a Federal Building in American History

Organizers like Judy Heumann pressured officials to implement the first federal legislation protecting disabled Americans from civil rights violations. “Being Heumann,” a new film by director Siân Heder, dramatizes the 26-day demonstration

Ellen Wexler

A facial reconstruction of a man whose decapitated skeleton was found in Musselburgh, Scotland, in 2010

Archaeologists in Scotland Discovered the Skeleton of a Roman-Era Man Who Was Decapitated Nearly 2,000 Years Ago. Now, You Can See What He Might Have Looked Like During His Lifetime

The ruins of Akrotiri, a Bronze Age settlement on what is now the Greek island of Santorini

Greece Has Its Own Pompeii, and the Ruins Tell a Captivating Story of a Sophisticated, Seafaring Bronze Age Society

Researchers found the bone flute in an archaeological layer of Troy that dates to the eighth century B.C.E.

Crafted From Bone, This 2,800-Year-Old Flute Unearthed in Troy May Have Been Played Around the Time That Homer Composed ‘The Iliad’ and ‘The Odyssey’

The paw print was found in the rubble of a Bronze Age home in Tavşanlı Höyük.

A Dog Left a Paw Print on This Mud Brick 4,000 Years Ago. Archaeologists Discovered It in the Rubble of a Bronze Age House

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Protesters occupied the Department of Health, Education and Welfare's regional offices in San Francisco for 26 days in 1977.

Women Who Shaped History

The Real Story Behind the 504 Sit-In for Disability Rights, the Longest Peaceful Occupation of a Federal Building in American History

Organizers like Judy Heumann pressured officials to implement the first federal legislation protecting disabled Americans from civil rights violations. “Being Heumann,” a new film by director Siân Heder, dramatizes the 26-day demonstration

The ruins of Akrotiri, a Bronze Age settlement on what is now the Greek island of Santorini

Greece Has Its Own Pompeii, and the Ruins Tell a Captivating Story of a Sophisticated, Seafaring Bronze Age Society

The Thera volcano, on modern-day Santorini, buried Akrotiri in ash in the 17th or 16th century B.C.E. The eruption was one of the largest in recorded history

The caskets of fallen American service members are loaded onto the S.S. Joseph V. Connolly in Antwerp, Belgium, in September 1947.

Untold Stories of American History

Two Years After World War II Ended, This Ship Brought the Bodies of 6,251 Fallen Service Members Back Home to America

The S.S. “Joseph V. Connolly” arrived in New York City on October 26, 1947. The caskets stored in its holds contained the remains of privates and three-star generals alike

Caana, a 141-foot-high “sky palace,” was abandoned around the year 900. Over the next thousand years, it was buried beneath jungle overgrowth in remote Caracol. The palace remains the tallest human-made structure in Belize.

Archaeologists at This Ancient Maya Metropolis in the Forest of Belize Are Debunking Long-Held Myths About the Mesoamerican Civilization

Diane and Arlen Chase have spent a good portion of their lives uncovering the once-great city of Caracol. Their groundbreaking research is rewriting everything we thought we knew about the Maya

In a 1574 letter to Elizabeth I, Ivan the Terrible wrote, “If you wish for more amity and friendship from us, ponder upon that subject and do that business by which you may increase our amity toward you.”

Ivan the Terrible Wanted to Marry Elizabeth I. How Did England’s ‘Virgin Queen’ Reject the Russian Czar Without Souring Trade Relations?

A new book details the Russian ruler’s failed courtship of the Tudor queen, who famously remained unmarried during her nearly 45-year reign

Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd was a Depression-era outlaw who earned the title of the nation's "public enemy No. 1."

‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd, One of the Most Notorious Outlaws of the Great Depression, Was Shot and Killed in an FBI Raid 92 Years Ago

Some Americans lauded the 30-year-old bank robber as a Robin Hood-esque folk hero. Others castigated him as a violent criminal whose misdeeds were emblematic of the troubled era

A total solar eclipse, as seen from the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Observatory in Chile in 2019

Were Two Ancient Chinese Astronomers Beheaded for Failing to Predict an Eclipse in 2134 B.C.E.? The Story May Be a Myth, but It Underscores the Real Risks of Interpreting Celestial Events

Experts say that an oft-circulated anecdote about two royal astronomers drunkenly failing to foresee an eclipse thousands of years ago contains hints of truth

Physician Joseph Bell (left) inspired Sherlock Holmes (center, as portrayed by actor Basil Rathbone), the detective created by writer Arthur Conan Doyle (right).

Arthur Conan Doyle Based Sherlock Holmes on a Real-Life Scottish Surgeon Who Used Deduction to Diagnose Patients and Investigate Crimes

A new book chronicles the exploits of Joseph Bell, an Edinburgh lecturer whose lessons sparked the creation of the world’s most famous detective

Ghostface, the primary antagonist of the Scream franchise, is one of the many horror icons featured in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures' latest exhibition.

From Slasher Films to Vampire Flicks, Horror Movies Are More Popular Than Ever. Relive the Genre’s Scariest Moments—if You Dare—at a New Exhibition

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures’ latest show features nearly 350 props, costumes and artifacts from such films as “Psycho,” “The Shining” and “Sinners”

Pottery fragments from Etowah in Georgia, where people of the Mississippian culture built large earthen mounds

Ancient Pottery Reveals the Earliest Known Traces of Chocolate East of the Mississippi, Painting a Picture of Connection in the Americas

A new archaeological discovery suggests that people in present-day Georgia have feasted with cacao for 1,000 years

A close-up view of a 1798 Gilbert Stuart portrait of Louis-Marie, Viscount de Noailles

The Marquis de Lafayette’s Brother-in-Law Participated in Three Revolutionary Wars, Supporting American Independence but Brutally Suppressing an Uprising by Enslaved Africans in Haiti

Louis-Marie, Viscount de Noailles, served during the American, French and Haitian Revolutions. “He fights wherever France fights, because he’s a soldier and he believes in France,” a historian says

All of the sites on the Shikoku Pilgrimage are associated with Kobo Daishi, a Japanese monk who lived during the ninth century and founded Shingon, a major school of Buddhism that focuses on the attainment of enlightenment during a practitioner’s lifetime.

Japan’s Smallest and Least-Populated Major Island Is a World of Pilgrimages, Delicious Food and Plenty of Forest Bathing

Each year, more than 100,000 people hike at least part of a 750-mile route on Shikoku that connects 88 Buddhist temples and other sacred sites

Work on Elizabeth I’s letters has focused on identifying the English queen’s “voice” within them. Yet they were often the products of collaboration between Elizabeth and her secretaries.

Who Wrote Elizabeth I’s Most Scathing Letters? New Research Suggests the Tudor Queen’s Male Secretaries Revised Her Correspondence to Emphasize Her Temper

An analysis of more than 500 missives found that Elizabeth’s advisers crafted and even intensified the expression of emotion in her messages to such figures as Mary, Queen of Scots, and James VI of Scotland

An illustration of Lancaster in the early 1800s. The Pennsylvania city served as the nation's capital on September 27, 1777.

America's 250th Anniversary

During the American Revolution, the City of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Served as the United States’ Capital for Just One Day

The nascent nation’s leaders fled to the inland city as the British advanced on Philadelphia in September 1777. They held one meeting at the local courthouse before moving on to York

A 1939 photo of Georgia Tann, head of the Memphis branch of the Tennessee Children’s Home Society

This Social Worker Was Supposed to Help Orphans Find Homes. Instead, She Abducted Children Who Already Had Families and Sold Them for Profit

Between 1924 and 1950, Georgia Tann placed more than 5,000 children—many of them seized from their parents without permission—with wealthy families across the U.S

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Did Thomas Jefferson Father Sally Hemings’ Children? After More Than a Decade of Research, the Answer Is Finally Firmly in Hand

A lock of hair, advances in genetic science and a community of descendants all contributed to solving an American mystery

In the lab, archaeologists showed how they could rapidly produce thick rope by threading cattail fibers through a replica of a Stone Age tool.

Archaeologists Are Reconstructing the ‘Invisible’ Technologies of the Stone Age, From Rope to Thread and Twine

Largely missing from the archaeological record, fiber innovations played a huge role in the lives of early humans. Researchers are weaving together new insights from the traces they left behind

The New York Times building, with its newspaper logo sign above the entrance, seen in New York City on August 6, 2026

The Founders of the ‘New York Times’ Pledged to Cover ‘Every Subject of Public Importance.’ 175 Years Later, the Paper Continues to Publish ‘All the News That’s Fit to Print’

Much has changed since the publication debuted on September 18, 1851. What hasn’t changed, staff members say, is the paper’s mission

An illustration from the 1720 text The History of Witches and Wizards, featuring witches offering wax dolls to the devil as part of a ritual

Six Ways That People of the Past Used Magic to Protect Their Homes, From Witch Bottles to Mystical Symbols

Throughout history, humans around the world have employed protective talismans such as special stones, herbs and plants, and decorative demon tiles

The center opened in December 2025.

Montana Built a $107 Million Museum. Its Smallest Room Says a Lot About the Thought That Went Into Designing the Space

The Montana Heritage Center in Helena has a smudge room. It is open to the public and teaches non-Native visitors why a room dedicated to the burning of cleansing materials, a practice of many Indigenous cultures, is needed

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