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History

The 1960 AFL Championship game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Houston Oilers was typical of the high-risk, exciting brand of football the AFL was known for.

The American Football League’s Foolish Club

Succeeding where previous leagues had failed, the AFL introduced an exciting brand of football forcing the NFL to change its entrenched ways

Jamaica possessed superb growing conditions for sugar cane, and by 1513, Spanish farmers in Sevilla la Nueva tended fields bristling with the green stalks.

Sugar Masters in a New World

Sevilla la Nueva, the first European settlement in Jamaica, is home to the bittersweet story of the beginning of the Caribbean sugar trade

The Dead Sea Scrolls remained hidden in caves for nearly 2,000 years until they were discovered, in 1947, by a shepherd.

Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Resolving the dispute over authorship of the ancient manuscripts could have far-reaching implications for Christianity and Judaism

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January Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

"Here is business enough for you," Gage told the first doctor to treat him after a premature detonation on a railroad-building site turned a tamping iron into a missile.

Phineas Gage: Neuroscience’s Most Famous Patient

An accident with a tamping iron made Phineas Gage history’s most famous brain-injury survivor

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Meat and Potatoes

Of carnivores and herbivores

Britain's leaders made a miscalculation when they assumed that resistance from the colonies, as the Earl of Dartmouth predicted, could not be "very formidable."

Myths of the American Revolution

A noted historian debunks the conventional wisdom about America’s War of Independence

An 1868 surgery kit, part of Harvard's Warren Anatomical Museum.

Highlights From the Warren Anatomical Museum

The collections inside this museum hold intriguing objects that tell the story of 19th century American medicine

Re-enactors dressed as George Washington and his volunteer Continental Army cross the Delaware River.

George Washington’s Christmas Crossing

An annual holiday tradition since 1952, re-enactors bring Washington crossing the Delaware to life

Andrew Lawler is currently a freelancer living in the woods of Maine.

Andrew Lawler on “Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?”

Sam Osmanagich claims that 12,000 years ago, early Europeans built "the greatest pyramidal complex" on earth, in Bosnia.

The Mystery of Bosnia’s Ancient Pyramids

An amateur archaeologist says he’s discovered the world’s oldest pyramids in the Balkans. But many experts remain dubious

The Waldseemüller map, printed in 1507, depicted the New World in a new way.

The Waldseemüller Map: Charting the New World

Two obscure 16th-century German scholars named the American continent and changed the way people thought about the world

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December Anniversaries

Ancient Pyramids Around the World

No matter if the civilization was Mesopotamian, Egyptian, or Mayan, its legacy today is in part marked by towering pyramids

The 2012 doomsday prophecy isn't the first to predict the end of civilization. Such warnings have been around for millenia.

Ten Notable Apocalypses That (Obviously) Didn’t Happen

Apocalyptic predictions are nothing new—they have been around for millennia

James "Pat" Daugherty, 85, served in the Army's storied 92nd Infantry Division, which was made up almost entirely of African-Americans.

Memoirs of a World War II Buffalo Soldier

In a recently published memoir written over 60 years ago, veteran James Daugherty details his experiences as an African-American in combat

Nan Madol is located near the southern side of the Federated States of Micronesia. It is the only ancient city ever built atop a coral reef.

Nan Madol: The City Built on Coral Reefs

One of the oldest archaeological sites not on a heritage list, this Pacific state, like Easter Island, is an engineering marvel

Phineas Staunton paid homage to his subject, Henry Clay, in an 11-by7-foot canvas.

The Rescue of Henry Clay

A long-lost painting of the Senate’s Great Compromiser finds a fitting new home in the halls of the U.S. Capitol

Starting in 1864, Arlington National Cemetery was transformed into a military cemetery.

How Arlington National Cemetery Came to Be

The fight over Robert E. Lee’s beloved home—seized by the U.S. government during the Civil War—went on for decades

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November Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

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