Smart News History & Archaeology

Ozzie Smith, a 2002 Hall of Fame inductee and member of the show's advisory committee, previews "The Souls of the Game."

Hall of Fame Examines 150 Years of Black Baseball History

A new exhibition begins long before the creation of the Negro Leagues and ends with the triumphs and challenges of today's players

Sue O'Connor (left) and Shimona Kealy (right) study some of the artifacts found in Timor-Leste, which offer clues that early humans took a more northern path from Southeast Asia to Australia tens of thousands of years ago.

Archaeologists Discover Clues to Ancient Migration Route That Brought Humans to Australia

New research offers evidence that humans did not inhabit the island of Timor until around 44,000 years ago, suggesting it was not part of the original migration route from Southeast Asia to Australia

A Juneteenth celebration held in Brooklyn, New York, on June 18, 2023

Why Juneteenth, the U.S.'s Second Independence Day, Is a Federal Holiday

The celebration commemorates June 19, 1865, when a military decree informed the people of Texas that all enslaved people were free

The 14.5-inch artifact was likely made between 900 and 1050 C.E.

Cool Finds

Norwegian Farmer Stumbles Upon 1,000-Year-Old Viking Sword

The well-preserved artifact may belong to a special class of high-quality, engraved weapons

Components of Seahenge, or Holme I, were displayed at the British Museum in 2022.

New Research

England's Mysterious 'Seahenge' Monument May Have Been Built to Prolong Summer

One researcher thinks the structure was used for ancient rituals during a period of bitter cold

A 3,000-year-old canoe at the bottom of Lake Mendota

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Ancient Canoes Hidden Beneath a Wisconsin Lake

One of the vessels dates back around 4,500 years, making it the oldest ever found in the Great Lakes region

The graves were found in central France during an excavation of a site containing mostly fifth- and sixth-century development.

Cool Finds

These 28 Horses Were Buried in an Ancient Mass Grave. How Did They Die?

Archaeologists are puzzled by the 2,000-year-old burial site uncovered in central France

American authorities rounded up all 600 of the artifacts in a single year.

Trove of 600 Looted Italian Artifacts Worth $65 Million Comes Home

The collection includes artifacts spanning the ninth century B.C.E. to the second century C.E.

One of the lost works discovered in AMU's University Library with annotations from the Brothers Grimm

The Brothers Grimm Did Much More Than Tell Fairy Tales

A recent discovery in a Polish library of 27 books that were thought to have been lost sheds light on the breadth of the German scholars' work

The 311-foot-long vessel was built in Connecticut starting in 1941 and made six war patrols in search of Japanese warships.

Wreck of WWII Submarine Found After 80 Years

The USS Harder, known by the nickname "Hit ‘em HARDER," was led by a commander known for his 'particularly audacious attacks' on Japanese warships

A 1905 illustration of Jamestown from Harper's Encyclopaedia of United States History 

Research Reveals Early Jamestown Settlers Ate Indigenous Dogs to Survive

Cut marks on canine bones demonstrate that English colonists relied on dogs for meals

Measuring more than five and a half feet long and three inches thick, the fragment represents almost an entire wall of the sarcophagus.

Ramses II's Long-Lost Sarcophagus Has Finally Been Identified

An Egyptologist recently concluded that a fragment of an overlooked granite coffin bears the great pharaoh's name

The late Bette Nash holds the Guinness World Record for longest career as a flight attendant, as well as oldest active flight attendant.

Bette Nash, Longest-Serving Flight Attendant in the World, Dies at 88

Nash became a flight attendant in 1957 and never stopped working

Researchers found cut marks related to cancer surgery on this ancient Egyptian skull dating back more than 4,000 years ago.

Cool Finds

Groundbreaking Research Shows Ancient Egyptians Were Conducting Cancer Surgery Over 4,000 Years Ago

By putting an ancient skull under the microscope, scientists are proving that cancer research is about 1,000 years older than previously thought

This charcoal sketch of gladiators was drawn from memory, not imagination, researchers say.

Cool Finds

The Children of Pompeii Saw Gladiators Fight to the Death—and They Drew Graffiti About It

Researchers recently discovered bloodshed-themed stick-figure sketches in a cluster of houses in the doomed ancient city

The set of 20 Fabergé carvings is worth an estimated $1.2 million. 

Miniature Fabergé Animals That Enchanted the Romanovs and Other Royals Are Up for Sale

Crafted around 1900, the charismatic carvings were inspired by Japanese decorative pendants

Police recovered the 1989 piece titled Study for Portrait of José Capelo.

Police Recover Stolen Francis Bacon Painting Worth $5 Million

The piece was one of five artworks stolen during a robbery in Madrid in 2015

Archaeologists have been studying the pet cemetery since it was first discovered in 2011.

Cool Finds

Letters Written by Ancient Roman Commanders Have Been Found in a Pet Cemetery in Egypt

Discovered among the graves of hundreds of cats, dogs and monkeys, the correspondence was likely written by centurions in the first century

Rare coins, found in Poland's Jeleniowskie mountain range, may have belonged to an infamous 18th-century fraudster.

Do These Coins Belong to a Legendary 18th-Century Polish Fraudster?

Mountain hermit Antoni Jaczewicz tricked sick people into thinking he had healing powers. A Polish treasure-hunting group believes they’ve found his fortune

Marc Händel, an archaeologist with the Austrian Academy of Sciences, excavates rib bones in the wine cellar.

Austrian Man Discovers Hundreds of Mammoth Bones While Renovating His Wine Cellar

Owner Andreas Pernerstorfer thought he'd found a piece of wood, but then he remembered something his grandfather had said about finding teeth in the cellar decades ago

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