Traditional Polynesian Vessel to Complete Round-the-World Journey

The Hōkūleʻa’s crew did not use any modern navigational devices, instead relying on the stars, waves, and clouds to guide them

Thomas Lincoln made this cherry day bed around 1810.

Cool Finds

This Father’s Day, Check Out Furniture Made by Abraham Lincoln’s Much-Maligned Dad

Thomas Lincoln was a master craftsman—and a man history has misrepresented

Jerrie Cobb stands before a Project Mercury space capsule in heels and gloves. What you can't see: inside the capsule, a male mannequin lies in the place where an astronaut eventually would. The FLATs were never seriously considered for astronaut positions.

Meet the Rogue Women Astronauts of the 1960s Who Never Flew

But they passed the same tests the male astronauts did—and, yes, in high heels

A statue "is the most efficient and courteous way yet discovered of ensuring a lasting oblivion of the deceased," Joyce said in 1907. Hardly the words of someone who wanted to be remembered long after his death.

Happy Bloomsday! Too Bad James Joyce Would Have Hated This

Joyce infamously disliked the idea of being memorialized

Ainu people wearing traditional clothes at the Ainu Museum, City of Shiraoi, Hokkaido, Japan.

Australia to Return Remains of Japan’s Indigenous Ainu People

In the early 20th century, an anthropologist excavated the remains and sent them overseas

Presumably laughing at a LOLcats meme.

Cool Finds

Why the Library of Congress Thinks Your Favorite Meme Is Worth Preserving

Webcomics and Web Cultures Archives are documenting online culture

Although scientific discoveries about blood started happening in the seventeeth century, blood transfusions are (mostly) a twentieth-century thing.

350 Years Ago, A Doctor Performed the First Human Blood Transfusion. A Sheep Was Involved

Early scientists thought that the perceived qualities of an animal—a lamb’s purity, for instance—could be transmitted to humans in blood form

The American Lobster, 'Homarus americanus,' found on the northern area of the Atlantic coast of America.

Climate Change, and Cod, Are Causing One Heck of a Lobster Boom in Maine

The complex relationships between humans, lobster, and cod are creating boom times—for now

This moving bowl will soon commemorate German reunification in Berlin.

Trending Today

Germany Moves Forward with Controversial Monument to Reunification

The German Memorial to Freedom and Unity has a fraught history

Thank Andrey Markov for your smartphone's predictive text feature—and also somewhat sillier uses.

Three Very Modern Uses For A Nineteenth-Century Text Generator

Andrey Markov was trying to understand poems with math when he created a whole new field of probability studies

In the war years, Greyhounds were crowded with travelers, leading planners to look at a new technology: helicopters.

In a Fit of 1940s Optimism, Greyhound Proposed a Fleet of Helicopter Buses

“Greyhound Skyways” would have turned major cities into bustling helicopter hubs

Pasteur took blood samples from a cow, a sheep and a horse who had died of anthrax.

How Sheep’s Blood Helped Disprove This Wacky Nineteenth-Century Theory of Illness

Scientists didn’t understand that bacteria caused disease, but then enter Louis Pasteur

This diary was kept by a French man who escaped Paris with his family during the Holocaust.

Trending Today

Crowdfunding Project Aims to Put 200 Holocaust Diaries Online

Eyewitness accounts bring the brutal chapter in history to life

Charles Blomfield

Cool Finds

After 130 Years, Lost Natural Wonder May Have Been Rediscovered in New Zealand

It was believed the Pink and White Terraces were destroyed in an eruption, but research suggests they are buried under ash and mud

The mask being held by researcher Leticia Cortes the day of the discovery.

Ancient Mask Challenges Theories on Origin of Metalworking in South America

The 3,000-year-old mask found in Argentina suggests that advanced metallurgy may not have been born in Peru

Aerial view of the wooden circle site

New Research

Massive Wooden Fire Monument Is Older Than Stonehenge

Carbon dating shows that the site dates back to 3300 B.C.

Will Puerto Rico ever be recognized as a state?

Trending Today

Puerto Rico Will Seek Statehood Again

Successful referendum sets the stage for another statehood bid

The dachshund leaps down with his prize.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

In 1913, One Gluttonous Pupper Changed the Course of Animation History

Years before “Steamboat Willie,” this animated dog hammed it up onscreen

King George and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon MacKenzie King ride in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's car as the president drives them away from church on June 11, 1939.

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt Served Hot Dogs to a King

A king had never visited a president at home before, but by all accounts they got along fine

257-Year-Old Coloring Book Rediscovered in St. Louis

The Florist contains 60 drawings, and recommends watercolor pigments like “gall-stone brown”

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