Smart News History & Archaeology

Cool Finds

In the 1960s, One Man Took Washington D.C.’s Rat Problem Into His Own Hands, Literally

And challenged the city’s race and wealth divide in the process

1924 Doble steam car at the Henry Ford Museum

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Here’s What Steam-Powered Cars Were Like Before the Combustion Engine

The Doble brothers’ built a beautiful steam car in 1924 but mismanagement kept it from being a financial sucess

On July 13, Barnum's American Museum was the site of a disastrous fire.

Cool Finds

150 Years Ago, a Fire in P.T. Barnum's Museum Boiled Two Whales Alive

Attracting tourists and locals alike, the museum mixed freakshow performers with educational collections

Scripps oceanographer Eric Terrill and BentProp founder Pat Scannon investigate the main fuselage of a TBM Avenger lost 70 years ago during a bombing mission near Palau.

Cool Finds

Divers Turn to Robots for Help Scouring the Pacific for Long-Lost WWII Soldiers

An ongoing effort to recover those missing in action teams military historians, volunteers and scientists

A treasure trove of tiny gold spirals from Boeslunde, Denmark

Cool Finds

Archeologists Have Found 2,000 Ancient Golden Spirals and They Have No Idea What They Are

The meaning or purpose behind the spirals is unclear, but they probably were part of a ritual

Workmen constructing the Statue of Liberty in Bartholdi's Parisian warehouse workshop in the winter of 1882.

Cool Finds

The Statue of Liberty Arrived in New York in 350 Pieces

Luckily, she also came with an instruction manual

Cool Finds

Explore This Map of 13 Centuries' Worth of English Metaphors

How long ago did English speakers start linking chickens with fearfulness?

New Horizons snapped this image of Pluto on July 12, 2015.

Cool Finds

How Pluto Got Its Name

New Horizons carries an instrument named for Venetia Burney, the 11-year-old girl who named Pluto

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Here’s What the First Lady Has to Do if She Wants to Redecorate

A few throw pillows and a touch of new paint? No way.

Dorothy Arzner (left) poses with Clara Bow in a publicity shot for The Wild Party.

Cool Finds

Why Was One of Hollywood's First Female Film Directors, Dorothy Arzner, Forgotten?

Arzner directed 20 feature films

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Obama Just Established Three New National Monuments Covering Over a Million Acres

Art, fossils and natural beauty

A bontebok

Cool Finds

Ever Heard of the Bontebok? It’s an African Animal Humans Nearly Destroyed, Then Saved

Part of this conservation success story relies on the bontebok’s inability to jump

Researchers discovered a red ochre- and milk-based paint on a stone flake from 49,000 years ago.

New Research

In South Africa, People Painted with Cow Milk Long Before They Domesticated Cattle

The need to hunt wild cow relatives would have made this paint valuable

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Why Is there Wine on the UNESCO World Heritage List?

Bordeaux, Champagne wine regions get world heritage designations

Eric Muenter bombed the U.S. Capitol building in July 1915.

In 1915 a Former Harvard Professor Tried to Blow Up the U.S. Capitol

Driven by anti-war sentiment, he went on to carry out several terrorist attacks in NYC to protest U.S. involvement in WWI

Cool Finds

Croquet Was Once the Big Thing at Wimbledon

The club has croquet to thank for its famous lawns

As part of a bioweapon experiment, Serratia marcescens (pictured on an agar plate above) was released in San Francisco back in 1950.

In 1950, the U.S. Released a Bioweapon in San Francisco

This was one of hundreds of bioweapon simulations carried out in the 1950s and 1960s

Benjamin Rush, prominent colonial physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, wrote a treatise on alcohol in 1784 that still influences how medicine views substance abuse today.

Cool Finds

Meet the Doctor Who Convinced America to Sober Up

Meet Benjamin Rush, father of the temperance movement, signer of the Declaration of Independence

A portion of the Great Wall of China in a more rural area

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More than 1,200 Miles of China’s Great Wall Have Been Destroyed

Only a small fraction of the remaining wall is in good condition

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Summer Jobs May Be a Thing of the Past

Fewer than one third of American teens snag summer employment

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