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
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.
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
Early Food Safety Workers Tested Poisons by Eating Them
They were hailed as heroes and even had a song
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
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
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
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
A Test Tube in Michigan Holds the Air From Thomas Edison’s Death Room
Two famous inventors, one glass tube and a museum mystery
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
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
The Second Divorce in Colonial America Happened Today in 1643
The Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans weren’t as conservative as you may have thought
We Used to Recycle Drugs From Patients’ Urine
Penicillin extracted from a patient’s urine could be reused
Nearly 40 Byzantine Shipwrecks Were Recently Unearthed in Turkey
The exceptionally well-preserved ships offer new insight into ship-building history
Satellite Photos Show Hundreds of Syrian Heritage Sites Damaged In Ongoing Fighting
The new satellite photos show the extent of the damage
Pittsburgh Has a Huge Collection of Relics
St. Anthony’s Chapel contains the largest number of relics outside of the Vatican
The Oldest Olive Oil Ever Found Is 8,000 Years Old
Chemical analyses unveil traces of olive oil in ancient Israeli pottery
After WWII, Scientists Conducted Deadly Tests With an Unexploded Nuclear Bomb Core
Physicist Richard Feynman called the tests “tickling the tail of a sleeping dragon”
Back When Americans Could Travel Freely to Cuba, Here’s What It Looked Like
The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1960
Why the Pantheon Hasn’t Crumbled
Ancient Roman concrete has some benefits over modern equivalents
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