“A great deal of slow poisoning is going on in Great Britain,” Birmingham doctor William Hinds wrote in 1857, as widespread coverage of arsenic-related deaths began to turn the public away from the toxin

Arsenic-Laced Books Discovered in University Library

During the Victorian era, the toxin was commonly found hidden in wallpaper, paints and dyes

Fabergé Silver Elephant Automaton Royal Collection Trust

Automata History Comes Alive in the ‘Marvellous Mechanical Museum’

The new exhibition at Compton Verney features a Fabergé elephant with swinging trunk and a gigantic kinetic sculpture by Rowland Emett

Part of the Danevirk wall surrounding Hedeby

Trending Today

Viking Archaeological Site and Others Earn World Heritage Status

The trading center of Hedeby and its surrounding wall are considered one of the most significant Viking sites in Northern Europe

An interactive timeline details about 20,000 of the archaeologists’ finds, complete with images and descriptions of the wide array of objects

New Website Unearths Amsterdam’s History Via 700,000 Artifacts Spanning 5,000 Years

The recovered items span thousands of years, and include coins, cell phones, dentures and more

Neolithic Roadway, Possibly a Ritual Site, Discovered in England

Archaeologists also found the skull of an extinct ox that is 2,000 years older than the trackway

New Research

Germany’s “Stonehenge” Reveals Evidence of Human Sacrifice

Archaeologists uncovered the remains of 10 women and children who may have been sacrificed at the Pömmelte enclosure, a 4,300-year-old Neolithic circle

Cool Finds

New Evidence Smashes Assumptions of Crushing Death for Pompeii Skeleton

Researchers found the intact skull of the skeleton that made headlines for being pinned beneath a giant stone block

Newly Discovered Footage Offers Rare Glimpse of FDR Walking

Stricken with polio at the age of 39, Roosevelt did not like to be photographed as he struggled to walk

Trending Today

Route 66 and 10 Other Sites That Made the 2018 “Most Endangered Historic Places” List

The National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual list is out

Queen Elizabeth examines the bones of Charles Byrne in 1962.

Trending Today

Why the Skeleton of the “Irish Giant” Could Be Buried at Sea

Activists want the bones of Charles Byrne to be buried according to his wishes

Wealthy Bostonian John Freake who, a new caption reveals, owned a slave.

Cool Finds

Museum Ties Portraits of the Wealthy to Their Slaveholding Pasts

New signs at the Worcester Art Museum illuminate how wealthy New Englanders benefitted from the slave trade

Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921

Einstein’s Travel Diaries Reveal His Deeply Troubling Views on Race

“It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races,” the iconic scientist writes

New Research

Where Did the Aztecs Get Their Turquoise?

New analysis shows the blue-green mineral found in Aztec art was likely mined in Mexico, not the American Southwest as previously believed

Double burial of two plague victims in the Samara region, Russia

Bacteria in Ancient Teeth Push Back Origins of the Bubonic Plague

The deadly disease may have been transmitted to humans at least 800 years earlier than previously believed

Recordings are available via Soundcloud and the Google Arts & Culture platform

How to Hear the Met’s Historic Instruments’ Singular Sounds

New audio recordings by the museum feature roughly 40 instruments, from Ming dynasty lute to the world’s oldest surviving piano

The hoard of £1 and £5 notes has a face value of about £30,000—or £1.5 million (roughly $2 million) in today’s currency

Cool Finds

$2 Million in World War II-Era Cash Found Under Floor of Churchill’s Tailor

The 30 bundles of £1 and £5 notes were likely stashed away amidst wartime uncertainty

Trending Today

The Unheralded Legacy of Civil Rights Leader Dorothy Cotton

The late activist helped organize the Birmingham marches and educated the disenfranchised about their constitutional rights

Works by artists including Wassily Kandinsky, Emil Nolde and Ernest Kirchner were featured in both the 1937 "Degenerate Art" exhibition and the 1938 British show

How the Brits Refuted Nazi Germany’s ‘Degenerate Art’ Exhibition

The 1938 show celebrated works by German Expressionists, defended artists on world stage

New Research

Inca Skull Surgeons Had Better Success Rates Than American Civil War Doctors

Survival rates among later Inca cultures was significantly higher. However, the 19th-century soldiers were facing trauma caused by industrial-age warfare

Cool Finds

Construction Workers Find Rare Intact Roman Tomb

‘The Tomb of the Athlete’ includes four bodies, a coin, offerings of chicken, rabbit and lamb and strigils, the symbol of Roman sportsmen

Page 198 of 327