A family of four buying gas at a service station.

A Short Picture History of Gas Stations

Gas stations have evolved a lot from their humble roots

The face of a dreamer.

Winston Churchill Imagined the Lab-Grown Hamburger

But he was off about the year when it would be created

A Thomas Gainsborough painting of Queen Charlotte

Five Things to Know About Queen Charlotte

Before Meghan Markle, the late 18th-century Queen Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz may have been the country’s first biracial royal

Some of the Roman defenses at Pegwell Bay

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Where Julius Caesar Landed in Britain

A large camp along Pegwell Bay is the likely spot where 20,000 Romans landed in 54 B.C.

Cool Finds

Ancient Orca Geoglyph Rediscovered in Peru

Found on a hillside in the Palpa desert, the 200-foot image was likely made by peoples of the Paracas and Nazca cultures

A square dance on Skyline Farms in Alabama, circa 1937.

Square Dancing is Uniquely American

Like the culture it came from, square dance has roots in European, Native American and African practices

Spandex, under the brand name Lycra, quickly took off after it was introduced in 1962. This ad was published in Good Housekeeping in October of that year.

Thank(?) Joseph Shivers For Spandex

From Spanx to space suits, spandex has shaped modern garments

Close-up of tent detail in Verplancks Point watercolor

Newly Discovered 235-Year-Old Watercolor Shows Off General Washington’s Wartime Tent

The painting offers a unique glimpse into the Revolutionary War

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre's Edicule, a shrine that encloses Jesus’ purported resting place

Mortar Found at “Jesus’ Tomb” Dates to the Constantine Era

The new analysis correlates with historical accounts stating that the tomb was discovered by the Romans, under the direction of emperor Constantine

The 1848 "Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World."

Museum Restores North America’s Longest Painting

Completed in 1848, the quarter-mile-long panorama deteriorated after it toured the country on wagons and trains

Tibetan manuscripts

A Look Inside China’s Effort to Preserve Historical Mongolian Manuscripts

Various projects are attempting to digitize the more than 200,000 volumes of Mongolian books and documents in the country

The interior of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub after the fire.

Three Medical Breakthroughs That Can Be Traced Back to a Tragic Nightclub Fire

Four hundred ninety-two people died as a result of the horrifying fire, an unprecedented death toll that led physicians to make unprecedented innovations

A cumulonimbus cloud formation, AKA a thunderstorm.

Our Cloud Names Come From a 1700s Amateur Meteorologist

Luke Howard’s nomenclature inspired writers as well as scientists

The Codex Quetzalecatzin

Behold the Newly Digitized 400-Year-Old Codex Quetzalecatz

The manuscript dates back to the late 1500s, and was recently acquired by the Library of Congress

Female match workers in the 1870s.

Friction Matches Were a Boon to Those Lighting Fires–Not So Much to Matchmakers

Those who worked in match factories were exposed to white phosphorus, which caused a debilitating and potentially deadly condition

A CARE package intended for West Germany in 1948.

How WWII Created the Care Package

Technically, the innovation was originally trademarked

Bosnian Serb military chief Ratko Mladic enters the Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2017, to hear the verdict in his genocide trial.

Ratko Mladic, Known as the ‘Butcher of Bosnia,’ Found Guilty of War Crimes and Genocide

A United Nations court found that Mladic had directed the murders of thousands of Muslims in the 1990s

Virginians may have celebrated early Thanksgivings with wild turkey, like this one. Other historical accounts say the first Thanksgiving was scraped together from ship rations, oysters, and ham.

The Pilgrims Weren’t the First to Celebrate Thanksgiving

Virginia has a claim to an earlier Christian Thanksgiving celebration

Forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley (left) and APVA Preservation Virginia/ Historic Jamestowne archaeologist (Danny Schmidt) discussing the double burial of two European males. James Fort site, 1607.

What Did Virginia’s Jamestown Colonists Eat?

So far, researchers have found remains of horses, rats and snakes in a well that dates back to the Starving Time

A cameraman at the coronation of King George V.

Why Do We Call TV Watchers ‘Viewers’?

It all goes back to a quirky BBC subcommittee working in the 1930s to change the English language

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