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?

Human skeletons found in a mass grave near the ruins of a medieval monastery in the English countryside.

Trending Today

English Mass Grave Sheds New Light on the Horrors of the Black Death

The burial pit contained 48 skeletons that tested positive for the plague

Trending Today

Yasir Arafat Museum Opens in Ramallah

The three-story building tells the story of the controversial Palestinian leader and includes artifacts like his Nobel Prize and views of his bedroom

A Colombian man cries during a June 20 peace protest in Bogotá.

Trending Today

After 52 Years, the War Between Colombia and the FARC Will End

Four out of five of the decades-long conflict’s dead were civilians

A booking photo from Rosa Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955.

Sixty-Six Years After Rosa Parks Took a Seat in Montgomery, Protest Is Alive in America

The civil rights leader likely would have approved of current activists’ work

The Ford assembly line in 1913.

In 1913, Henry Ford Introduced the Assembly Line: His Workers Hated It

It was seen as one more way the automaker could exert rigid control over his employees

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