The familiar home vacuum was immediately predated by the carpet sweeper.

The Vacuum Cleaner Was Harder to Invent Than You Might Think

The original vacuum cleaner required a number of improvements before becoming the household staple it is today

Newly found letters by Alan Turing

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New Letters Show Alan Turing Wasn’t a Fan of the U.S.A.

The groundbreaking mathematician and computer scientist who spent 2 years at Princeton wrote that he ‘detests America’ in newly found documents

Marshall was the first African-American Supreme Court Justice.

The Case Thurgood Marshall Never Forgot

Fifty years ago today, Thurgood Marshall became a Supreme Court justice. He kept telling the story of the Groveland Four

Alexander served as the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, and was a prominent Founding Father before his untimely death.

Get Your Hamilton Fix With This New Trove of Digitized Documents

The Library of Congress has uploaded 12,000 items relating to the ‘ten-dollar Founding Father without a father’

An archeologist works at the site where 16 tombs belonging to 19th-century Chinese immigrants were discovered, at Huaca Bellavista in Lima, Peru.

Remains of 19th-Century Chinese Laborers Found at a Pyramid in Peru

Between 1849 and 1874, more than 100,000 workers traveled from China to Peru, where they faced discrimination and abuse

Some authorities believe that chop suey is related to a traditional Chinese dish, but nobody knows for sure.

Chop Suey: An American Classic

Nobody really knows exactly where this dish came from, but it’s not China

This clay tablet written around the year 1800 B.C.E. may represent the oldest known use of trigonometry

New Research

Ancient Babylonian Tablet May Hold Earliest Examples of Trigonometry

If true, it would mean the ancient culture figured out this mathematical field more than a millennia before its known creation

Philo T. Farnsworth got his big idea while plowing a field. He was 14, by the way.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Farmboy Who Invented Television

The inventor of television’s career presages many of the good and bad things about Silicon Valley

Hemingway in Cuba.

How Mary Hemingway and JFK Got Ernest Hemingway’s Legacy Out of Cuba

1961, the year Hemingway died, was a complicated year for U.S.-Cuba relations

Brr.

The Father of Modern Chemistry Proved Respiration Occurred by Freezing a Guinea Pig

Where he got the guinea pig from remains a mystery

Tropical Storm Harvey as seen the morning of August 24, 2017 by NOAA's GOES-16 satellite.

Why Amateur Radio Operators Are Watching Hurricane Harvey

Ham radio underwent a resurgence in the United States after Hurricane Katrina

The Romsey Abbey Sheela-na-Gig

Interactive Map Tracks Ireland’s Mysterious Naked Sculptures

Sheela-na-Gigs, which appear to depict elderly women exposing exaggerated genitals, have long fascinated scholars and amateur historians

Some of the more traditional offerings at the Iowa State Fair. This year's fair food includes deep fried cheddar bacon cheese on a stick.

Bite Into the Whys Behind State Fair Food

This American institution has changed a lot, but some things remain just the same

The first can opener was a blade that sawed around the can's edge, leaving a jagged rim.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Why the Can Opener Wasn’t Invented Until Almost 50 Years After the Can

The first ‘can opener’ was a hammer and chisel

Before Fannie Farmer, recipes were more like estimates. She standardized measurements and insisted on "scientific" cookery.

Fannie Farmer Was the Original Rachael Ray

Farmer was the first prominent figure to advocate scientific cookery. Her cookbook remains in print to this day

Metin Eren recreates ancient arrowheads to see how they respond when fired with bows like this

This Lab Replicates Weapons to Reveal Stone Age Feats of Engineering

A Kent State archaeologist is testing the innovative engineering of the Clovis people, one of the earliest communities to inhabit North America

The former bank where four hostages and two robbers spent six days holed up in the vault.

The Six-Day Hostage Standoff That Gave Rise to ‘Stockholm Syndrome’

Although it is widely known, ‘Stockholm syndrome’ is not recognized by the APA

The original name proposed had been “Frankland,” but the counties changed it to Franklin in an attempt to get Benjamin Franklin on their side. No luck, alas.

American South

The True Story of the Short-Lived State of Franklin

Several counties in what is today Tennessee tried to form their own independent state

New Research

X-Rays Reveal Details of Portrait Once Hidden Under Vesuvius’ Ash

Using X-ray fluorescence, researchers have mapped the pigments used on a crumbling painting in Herculaneum

The battered remnants of Fritz Koenig's "Sphere" will return to the World Trade Center site after years of exile.

Cool Finds

The World Trade Center’s Only Surviving Art Heads Home

Battered, but not broken, Fritz Koenig’s “Sphere” is being reinstalled near its original location at Ground Zero

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