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Mutineers walk in on a chaplain "with a smoking pistol in his hand" in the Arthur Conan Doyle short story "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott."

Thank Sherlock Holmes for the Phrase ‘Smoking Gun’

From its origins to modern day, the favorite cliché of detectives and journalists everywhere refuses to kick the bucket

Police remove peaceful protestors from a sit-in at the U.S. Capitol in 1965.

Martin Luther King and Gandhi Weren’t the Only Ones Inspired By Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience’

Thoreau’s essay became a cornerstone of 20th-century protest

Josiah Wedgwood, of Wedgwood pottery fame, was also a staunch abolitionist and designed this medallion to further the cause.

This Anti-Slavery Jewelry Shows the Social Concerns (and the Technology) of Its Time

The ‘Wedgwood Slave Medallion’ was the first modern piece of protest jewelry

One of the tablets found at the fort

Cool Finds

Cache of Roman Messages Found Near Hadrian’s Wall

The 25 well-preserved wooden tablets include a soldier’s request for time off

The Lenox Madeira

Cool Finds

New Jersey Museum Discovers Stash of Madeira from 1796

Liberty Hall Museum owns the wine and will decide if anyone will be allowed to sample the Revolutionary libation

The Declaration of Independence in its first known newspaper printing on July 6, 1776.

Watch How (Slowly) News of the Declaration of Independence Spread in Real Time

Before social media, TV, radio and even telegraphs, news of America’s independence took a long time to reach some Americans

The women faced temperatures of almost -50 degrees Fahrenheit, blasting winds and ever-changing ice conditions.

Trending Today

The Amazing Story of the First All-Women North Pole Expedition

Answering an ad in a newspaper, 20 amateur explorers attempted to ski from Arctic Canada to the top of the world

The first page of 'Measure For Measure' in the First Folio of 1623. Set in Vienna and full of less-than-proper characters, this play proved the most challenging to bowdlerize.

The Bowdlers Wanted to Clean Up Shakespeare, Not Become a Byword for Censorship

Thomas and Henrietta Bowdler started out with relatively noble intentions

This island has been a boy's club for hundreds of years.

Trending Today

This Island Can Only Be Visited by Men

Okinoshima is officially an Unesco world heritage site—but tradition bans women from its shores

Smithsonian Curator Weighs In on Photo That Allegedly Shows Amelia Earhart in Japanese Captivity

A History Channel special claims that a National Archives photo shows the pilot sitting on a dock in the Pacific, but experts are skeptical

Professor Lyndal Ryan poses with the online map of colonial Frontier massacres in Eastern Australia.

Online Map Charts Massacres of Indigenous Australians

European settlers waged more than 150 attacks against Aboriginal groups along the country’s east coast, resulting in the deaths of some 6,000 people

Baum produced a stage version of his children's book two years after it came out. This work was aimed primarily for adults, and was the first time the Tin Woodman was referred to as the Tin Man.

The Tin Man Is a Reminder of L. Frank Baum’s Onetime Oil Career

Baum had a number of careers before he hit it big with ‘The Wizard of Oz’

Sheila Michaels explained the power of the honorific "Ms." on the radio in 1969. Word of the broadcast got to Gloria Steinem was looking for a name for her new magazine. The first regular issue of Ms. magazine hit the newsstands in July 1972.

Sheila Michaels, the Feminist Who Made ‘Ms.’ Mainstream, Has Died at 78

The activist championed “Ms.” as a title that would allow women to be seen independently of their marital status

The inventors of the laser probably didn't anticipate its use in things like rock shows or freaking out cats.

Today We Use Lasers For Almost Everything. But They Took a Long Time to Seem Useful

After the first laser was built in 1960, it took a long time before laser products were on the mass market

This familiar landscape is always in flux.

Cool Finds

Surf Through Newly Digitized Images to See Rome’s Ever-Changing History

The Eternal City is always evolving. Now, a new web resource shows how

French privateers and the newly reformed U.S. Navy fought in the Quasi War. "Despite these effective U.S. military operations, however, the French seized some 2,000 U.S. vessels during this conflict," writes historian Nathaniel Conley.

This Unremembered US-France ‘Quasi War’ Shaped Early America’s Foreign Relations

America wasn’t officially at war with France between 1798 and 1800, but tell that to the U.S. Navy

Even though the idea of sliced bread took off like a shot, it took the inventor of the bread-slicing machine years to convince bakers to try his invention.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

Take a Look at the Patents Behind Sliced Bread

It took a surprising amount of technological know-how to make the bread that birthed the expression

Senator William Blount was impeached on this day in 1797.

This 1797 Impeachment Has Never Been Fully Resolved

Can an impeached senator be tried? Who knows! Let’s unpack this constitutional question

This dwelling housed resistance to Mexico City's new Spanish conquerors.

Cool Finds

Mexico City Dig Uncovers Traces of Aztec Resistance to Spain

For residents of Tenochtitlan, rebellion didn’t just happen on the battlefield

One of the cuneiform tablets handed over by Hobby Lobby

Trending Today

Hobby Lobby Hands Over 5,500 Illegally Imported Artifacts

In 2010, the arts-and-crafts retailer purchased thousands of cultural artifacts smuggled from Iraq

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