A Standard Stations filling station in California, circa 1939.

Leaded Gas Was a Known Poison the Day It Was Invented

For most of the mid-twentieth century, lead gasoline was considered normal. But lead is a poison, and burning it has had dire consequences

Canada will have plenty of time to get used to Viola Desmond—she'll soon be on the country's $10 bills.

Canada

Canada Will Put Another Woman on Its Currency

An early civil rights heroine makes history (again)

Jeanette Rankin, pictured here in 1917, was the first woman elected to Congress and the only person to cast a vote against entering World War II.

Only One Person Voted Against the United States Entering World War II

Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin’s dedication to pacifism sprang from her personal brand of feminism

Wikipedia has a woman problem—that women themselves can tackle.

Trending Today

Help the BBC Close Wikipedia’s Gender Gap

The Beeb’s hosting an edit-a-thon to improve the online encylopedia’s coverage of women

Cool Finds

The Ancient Origins of Apple Cider

The classic fall drink has a boozy history going back thousands of years

Lethal injection as a means to execute condemned prisoners was first used thirty-four years ago.

Thirty-four Years Ago, the First Person Died by Lethal Injection. It Was Controversial Then, Too

It was seen as more humane and relatively painless, but that’s not certain

The Beckery monastery as it would have looked in the fifith century

Cool Finds

Oldest Community of Monks in U.K. Discovered

The find was thanks to a community training dig

Don't look for official memorials to the dead dictator—there won't be any.

Trending Today

Why There Won’t Be Any Monuments to Fidel Castro in Cuba

El Comandante had one last dictate

The monument at sunset.

The Washington Monument Looks Like an Obelisk Because of Egyptomania

In the 1800s, America was desperate to look like it had been around for a while, so it was adopting old styles. Really old

Ever Wonder Why Encylopedia Is Sometimes Spelled Encyclopædia?

Scribes added the ash to the Roman alphabet so they could phonetically spell sounds that Latin didn’t include

Today, America's founding documents reside in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom in the National Archives.

Cool Finds

What Happened to America’s Most Precious Documents After Pearl Harbor?

Librarians and archivists made sure the nation’s records didn’t become casualties of World War II

The gate stolen from Dachau concentration camp

Trending Today

Gate Stolen From Dachau Concentration Camp Recovered in Norway

The metal gate bearing the slogan Arbeit Macht Freiwas recently found outside the city of Bergen

Queen Nefertari's knees

New Research

Researchers Identify Queen Nefertari’s Mummified Knees

Found in 1904, new research confirms the mummified fragments in a Turin museum likely belong to ancient Egypt’s beautiful and revered queen

New Research

Archeologists Discover Nearly 2,000-Year-Old Pet Cemetery in Egypt

Containing 100 lovingly positioned creatures, the site suggests that the ancients could have valued their companion animals as much as we do

Abraham Ortelius created the world's first modern atlas, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, or "Theater of the World," in 1570. Shakespeare, who famously wrote that "all the world's a stage," was doubtless influenced by the maps that flourished during his lifetime.

Cool Finds

How Maps Shaped Shakespeare

An exhibition in Boston delves into historical maps to show how the Bard saw the wider world

Two supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment demonstrate in August 1980.

Cool Finds

These Photos Bring the Women’s Movement to Life

Catching the Wave dramatizes the large and small moments of second-wave feminism

Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, in an undated photo.

When Women Weren’t Allowed to Go to Harvard, Elizabeth Cary Agassiz Brought Harvard to Them

Unlike other women’s colleges of the day, the Annex was intimately connected with Harvard

A partial skull of an ancient elephant uncovered in a new L.A. Metro station.

Cool Finds

Construction Workers Uncover Ancient Elephant Bones Under L.A.’s Subway

But it won’t slow the metro down

Trending Today

Goodbye, Barrow, Alaska. Hello, Utqiagvik

The most northerly city has officially reverted back to the Inupiaq name for the settlement on the Arctic sea

Trending Today

There’s a Department of Government Ethics? What Does it Do?

What is the agency weighing in on the incoming administrations potential conflicts of interest?

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