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Smart News / Smart News History & Archaeology

Archaeologists in Alexandria, Virginia, have unearthed three 18th-century ships that were buried to extend the city's land.

Three 18th-Century Ships Found in Old Town Alexandria Tell a Story of Colonial-Era Virginia

Another intentionally buried ship was found just a block away from the newly discovered finds in 2015

Cool Finds

Meet Freddy, the Runaway Bison Who Inspired a Choral Arrangement

The piece references Manitoban history, a small town’s celebrity animal and includes distorted bison noises

Ramin Haerizadeh, He Came, He Left, He Left, He Came, 2010, mixed media and collage on canvas, The Farook Collection, Dubai.

Future of Art

Exhibition Shows How Iran’s Present and Past Merge Through Art

The new show at LACMA features 125 works of art from more than 50 artists, some of whom couldn’t make it to the opening because of the travel ban

Scanning Tut's tomb

Trending Today

Sorry, There Are No Secret Chambers in King Tut’s Tomb

After two contradictory radar scans, Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities commissioned a third comprehensive survey that revealed no voids beyond the tomb walls

Cool Finds

The Legendary Sultan Saladin Was Likely Killed by Typhoid

Reviewing historical accounts of his death, doctors and historians believe his sweating fits and weakness were brought on by the bacterial infection

A photo taken outside of "Hamilton: An American Musical" in Chicago. The new exhibition will join the musical in the Windy City in the fall of 2018.

Future of Art

Hamilfans, Rejoice: Exhibition on the Revolutionary Musical Is Slated to Open This Fall

‘Hamilton: The Exhibition’ is coming to Chicago in November

A diver brings up a sealed glass bottle from the shipwreck of the Sydney Cove

Cool Finds

Australian Brewers Are Making Beer From Yeast Found on a Shipwreck

A new porter-style ale gets its funk from a 220-year old specimen

A view of the interior of the Temperate House during a press preview of its reopening at Kew Gardens.

Europe

World’s Largest Victorian Glasshouse Opens Doors After Five-Year Restoration Project

London’s Kew Gardens’ Temperate House is home to some of the world’s rarest plants

Stephen Towns. Birth of a Nation. 2014. Private Collection.

Cool Finds

Artist’s Quilts Pay Tribute to African-American Women

Artist Stephen Towns’ first museum exhibition showcases his painterly skill through traditional textile art

An example from a collection of drawings made by Sioux artists living in Fort Yates, North Dakota, in 1913.

Newberry Library Digitizes Trove of Lakota Drawings

The art is part of a larger digitization project of early American history by the Chicago-based research library

Cool Finds

No, the Bone of Saint Clement Was Probably Not Just Found in London’s Trash

A waste hauler found the bone fragment in a case sealed with red wax and tied with red cords. It included a faded label reading: “Ex Oss. S Clementis PM”

Mid 15th-century diners sit down to an elaborate meal in this illustration from an anonymous artist.

New Research

DNA From Ancient Latrines Reveal What People Ate Centuries Ago

By digging in ancient toilets, researchers uncovered genetic material that tells of past diets and diseases

Hiroshima the day after the nuclear bomb was dropped.

Researchers Identify How Much Radiation Hiroshima Victims Were Exposed to

The scientists say their research is the first to use a human bone to precisely measure the radiation absorbed by an atomic bombing victim

Sandby Borg ring fort

New Research

1,500-Year-Old Massacre Unearthed in Sweden

Archaeologists have so far uncovered the bodies of 26 men and children on the coastal village of Sandby Borg, possible victims of a local power struggle

Cuneiform tablet seized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from Hobby Lobby.

Cool Finds

Some of Hobby Lobby’s Smuggled Artifacts May Come From Lost Sumerian City

Among the 3,800 artifacts being repatriated to Iraq today include pieces believed to be from Irisagrig, a site archaeologists have yet to find

View of Trujillo between mountains and desert In Peru

Archaeologists Discover Site of One of History’s Largest-Recorded Incidents of Child Sacrifice

The excavation uncovered the remains of more than 140 children and 200 llamas, who were sacrificed some 550 years ago in Peru’s northern coast

Clothes of genocide victims whose bodies were recently exhumed hang outside at the site of the mass grave in Gasabo district, near the capital Kigali, in Rwanda

Victims of Rwandan Genocide Identified in Newly Discovered Mass Graves

The discovery comes almost a quarter century after the genocide occurred

Europe

A History Nerd Will Get to Spend the Summer Guiding Visitors Through 4,000 Years of History

Jarlshof in the Shetland Islands is looking for a guide to take visitors through its Stone, Bronze and Iron Age, Pictish, Viking and Scottish ruins

Located in Orange, Virginia, Montpelier was the plantation home of the Madison family. It's now a museum and historical site.

LiDAR Gives Researchers New Insight Into the Lives of Montpelier’s Enslaved Population

Around 300 enslaved people lived and worked on James Madison’s historic estate

Contracted crews remove the Fountain of the Pioneers complex from Bronson Park, Tuesday, April 24, 2018.

Kalamazoo Removes Sculpture Depicting Armed White Settler Towering Over a Native American

“Fountain of the Pioneers” has been controversial since it was erected in 1940

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