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Smart News / Smart News History & Archaeology

Endurance immobilized in pack ice, as captured by crew photographer Frank Hurley in 1915

Wreck of Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’ May ‘Decay Out of Existence’

The recently discovered vessel is vulnerable on the seafloor, but raising it from the depths comes with unique challenges

The skeleton of a 70-million-year-old hadrosaurus dinosaur, the same genus as the dinosaur specimen in the new study, at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Canada. 

Rare ‘Mummified Dinosaur’ Formed in an Unexpected Way

The prehistoric reptile’s skin may have been preserved by scavengers, research suggests

President Joe Biden speaks at a ceremony to create a 53,804-acre national monument in the mountains of Colorado.

Biden Declares His First National Monument at Colorado’s Camp Hale

Once home to the Ute Tribes, the site later became a military training base for the skiing soldiers who fought in World War II

Moai statues on Easter Island

Fire Irreversibly Damages Easter Island Statues

The isolated island is home to hundreds of the mysterious monuments

The 44 solid gold coins dating back to the Byzantine era were discovered at the Hermon Stream Nature Reserve.

Cool Finds

These Gold Coins Were Stashed in a Stone Wall Nearly 1,400 Years Ago

Archaeologists found the 44 Byzantine-era coins during excavations in the Golan Heights

A facial reconstruction of a 17-year-old Stone Age woman

Art Meets Science

Facial Reconstruction Shows What This Stone Age Woman May Have Looked Like

Researchers found her skull in 1881, mistakingly believing it belonged to a man

A photo of Ales Bialiatski on display in the Nobel’s garden at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo, Norway

Nobel Peace Prize Goes to Human Rights Activists in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia

Belarus political prisoner Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties jointly won this year’s award

In addition to sorting mail and manning the gift shop, the women will help keep an eye on the 1,500 penguins who live at Port Lockroy.

Meet the Four Women Who Will Run Antarctica’s ‘Penguin Post Office’

Selected from 6,000 applicants, the workers will spend five months counting penguins and sending mail from the seventh continent

The archaeological site at Himera in Sicily

Mercenaries Were More Common in Greek Warfare Than Ancient Historians Let on

New research finds that many soldiers who fought in the fifth-century B.C.E. battles at Himera were born outside of the empire

A butte in Gem County, Idaho, is now named Sehewoki’I Newenee’an Katete.

Hundreds of Federal Sites Officially Drop Racial Slur From Their Names

The Interior Department is renaming locations across the country to remove the derogatory word for Native American women

Singer-songwriter Loretta Lynn was applauded—and sometimes banned—for her daring songs about women's lives. 

Country Legend Loretta Lynn Braved Controversy to Tell the Truth About Women’s Experiences

The self-taught singer-songwriter died on October 4 at her home in Tennessee

Untitled artwork by Moses Johuma, a student at the Cyrene Mission School

Rare Collection of 1940s Art Returns to Zimbabwe After 70 Years

Students at the Cyrene Mission School created the works at a time when the African country was under colonial rule

Researchers have created facial reconstructions of three medieval Scottish people who were buried at the historic Whithorn site.

Art Meets Science

Stunning Facial Reconstructions Resurrect a Trio of Medieval Scots

The renderings show what a bishop, a cleric and a young woman with a remarkably symmetrical face may have looked like in life

Sacheen Littlefeather speaking at the Academy Awards in 1973

Indigenous Rights Activist Sacheen Littlefeather Dies at 75

Marlon Brando sent her to decline his Best Actor award in protest over Hollywood’s depiction of Native Americans

Fragments of the Hercules statue (left) and an archaeologist excavating the artwork (right)

Cool Finds

Archaeologists in Greece Unearth ‘Larger-Than-Life’ Statue of Hercules

The team discovered the 2,000-year-old artwork in Philippi

The new coin depicting Charles III

See the New British Coins Featuring Charles III

In his new portrait, the king faces left—and doesn’t wear a crown

The S.S. Mesaba

Cool Finds

The Ship That Tried to Warn the Titanic Has Been Found

Scientists discovered the S.S. Mesaba in the Irish Sea—with the help of multibeam sonar

A close-up of Stonehenge in Salisbury, England

What Do Stonehenge and Japanese Stone Circles Have in Common?

A new exhibition explores the surprising parallels between British and Japanese traditions

A different page from the Beauvais Missal, a manuscript created in the late 13th century

Cool Finds

Man Pays $75 for Medieval Text That Could Be Worth $10,000

He spotted the page from the 13th-century Beauvais Missal at an estate sale in Maine

Lizzo plays President James Madison’s flute at the Library of Congress

Lizzo Played a 200-Year-Old Glass Flute Given to James Madison

The Library of Congress invited the musician, a classically trained flutist, to play the instrument at her concert this week

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