Smart News History & Archaeology

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The First State of the Union Address: Way Shorter, Way Less Clapping

In his First Annual Message to Congress, George Washington outlined the country’s most pressing issues and kicked off a flexible annual tradition

January 20, 2015

Cool Finds

This 3,500-Year-Old Dagger Made a Really Great Doorstop

One man’s doorstop is another man’s rare, ancient artifact

January 19, 2015

Cool Finds

Tighty-Whities First Hit the Market More Than 80 Years Ago

Even a blizzard couldn’t dampen the excitement from the release of the first pair of men’s briefs in 1935

January 19, 2015

Cool Finds

Beavers Once Parachuted into Idaho’s Backcountry

Strange things can happen when you combine WWII military surplus, innovative thinking and a bunch of beavers in need of a new home

January 16, 2015

Cool Finds

Read Through Early Drafts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Speeches

One website gives you a peek into the mind of one of America’s most powerful orators

January 16, 2015

Cool Finds

Mummy Feces Solve the Mystery of How Verona's Most Powerful Man Died

Digging deep for the secret behind a medieval warlord's mysterious death

January 13, 2015

Cool Finds

Two Men Tried To Cure Schizophrenia by Removing Their Patients’ Intestines

Bayard Holmes and Henry Cotton were separated by a generation, but both thought that mental illness arose from toxins produced within the body

January 12, 2015

Cool Finds

How a Single Penny Became Worth More Than $2 Million

Fifteen years ago, few would pay $1 million for a coin—no matter how rare. That's changing.

January 12, 2015

Cool Finds

On This Day in 1932, America Elected Its First Female Senator

This year, a record number of women are serving in Congress; Hattie Wyatt Caraway was the first ever in the Senate

January 12, 2015

Early Food Safety Workers Tested Poisons by Eating Them

They were hailed as heroes and even had a song

January 9, 2015

New Research

Europe's Great Gothic Cathedrals Weren't Built Just of Concrete

The designers and builders of Europe's great Gothic cathedrals weren't actually so innovative

January 9, 2015

Cool Finds

The 1887 Blizzard That Changed the American Frontier Forever

A blizzard hit the western open range, causing the “Great Die Up” and transforming America’s agricultural history

January 9, 2015

Cool Finds

The Flu Has Been Making People Sick for At Least 500 Years

The 1918 flu pandemic gets all the headlines, but the malady is thought to have first appeared in the 16th century—and possibly earlier

January 8, 2015

Cool Finds

Ellis Island Isn’t to Blame for Your Family’s Name Change

A long-standing myth obscures the truth behind the Americanization of some European names

January 8, 2015

Cool Finds

A Test Tube in Michigan Holds the Air From Thomas Edison's Death Room

Two famous inventors, one glass tube and a museum mystery

January 7, 2015

Trending Today

What Was Found Inside the Oldest American Time Capsule

Historians in Boston have just cracked open a brass box originally buried in 1795 by Paul Revere and Samuel Adams

January 7, 2015

New Research

Amateur Explorers Are Using High-Res Satellite Images to Search for Genghis Khan's Tomb

Amateur explorers used ultra-high resolution satellite images to help search for the grave of one of the world’s most powerful rulers

January 6, 2015

Cool Finds

The Second Divorce in Colonial America Happened Today in 1643

The Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans weren’t as conservative as you may have thought

January 5, 2015

Cool Finds

We Used to Recycle Drugs From Patients' Urine

Penicillin extracted from a patient's urine could be reused

January 2, 2015

New Research

Nearly 40 Byzantine Shipwrecks Were Recently Unearthed in Turkey

The exceptionally well-preserved ships offer new insight into ship-building history

December 30, 2014