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History / World History

The Games may not exist at all were it not for the perseverance of the Brits.

The Paris Olympics

The Little-Known History of How the Modern Olympics Got Their Start

Acclaimed sportswriter Frank Deford connects the modern Games to their unlikely origin—in rural England

The Top 10 Biggest Sports #Fails of All Time

For athletes on the world stage, nothing is worse than choking under pressure. Here are the 10 most memorable transgressors

Canadian reenactors recreate a battle from the War of 1812 in London, Ontario.

Canada

How Canada Celebrates the War of 1812

The Rodney Dangerfield of wars in the United States, the 19th-century conflict is given great respect by our Northern neighbors

A Bolivian donkey of the 1850s. From Herndon and Gibbon, Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon (1854).

Run Out of Town on an Ass

According to legend, Queen Victoria, informed of an early president’s angry insult to her ambassador, struck Bolivia off the map. But is it true?

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Great Moments in Chicken Culinary History

Where did these six poultry-based dishes (with one imposter) get their start?

Chicken reigns in the 21st century.

How the Chicken Conquered the World

The epic begins 10,000 years ago in an Asian jungle and ends today in kitchens all over the world

1966-67 AAA map of New York

Maps of the Future

A 1989 prediction about portable GPS devices was right on the money

The original lifeboat, the James Caird, built in 1914, had an open top, exposing its inhabitants to the elements.

Reliving Shackleton’s Epic Endurance Expedition

Tim Jarvis’s Plan to Cross the Antarctic in an Exact Replica of the James Caird

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels makes a point.

Hitler’s Very Own Hot Jazz Band

Egyptians embalming a corpse.

The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine

The question was not “Should you eat human flesh?” says one historian, but, “What sort of flesh should you eat?”

Marilyn Monroe getting ready for her close-up in a movie of the future

Resurrecting the Dead With Computer Graphics

Rufus Choate

The Case of the Sleepwalking Killer

The evidence against Albert Tirrell was lurid and damning—until Rufus Choate, a protegé of the great Daniel Webster, agreed to come to the defense

Digital billboard in 2019 Los Angeles from the film Blade Runner (1982)

Billboard Advertising in the City of Blade Runner

Are Angelenos destined to be perpetually surrounded by super-sized advertisements?

Editor John Henson of The New Aladdin floppy disk magazine

The Magazine of the Future (on floppy disk!)

More than 20 years before the iPad, an entrepreneur saw the potential of interactive, digital magazines

In 1882, years after an Apache encampment was massacred by Mexican troops, the tribe's legendary leader Geronimo and his men came to avenge the killings on a grassy hill just north of the town of Galeana in Mexico.

Geronimo’s Decades-Long Hunt for Vengeance

Close by the Mormon colony of Colonia Dublan is an unlikely tourist attraction: the small hilltop where the legendary Apache leader exacted his revenge

The British pigeon known as Crisp VC brought back news of the sinking of an armed trawler by a German U boat and the heroic death of her captain, Thomas Crisp, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

World War I: 100 Years Later

Closing the Pigeon Gap

During the First World War, Allied birds outperformed their rivals and saved thousands of lives–all thanks to the efforts of one London pigeon fancier

The Potala Palace, Lhasa: home to nine successive Dalai Lamas, a number of them suspiciously short-lived.

Murder in Tibet’s High Places

The Dalai Lama is one of the world’s most revered religious leaders, but that didn’t prevent four holders of the office from mysteriously dying

Polio patients in iron lungs in 1952

Salk, Sabin and the Race Against Polio

As polio ravaged patients worldwide, two gifted American researchers developed distinct vaccines against it. Then the question was: Which one to use?

1950 depiction of a smoldering New York after a nuclear attack

Hiroshima, U.S.A.

In 1950, a popular magazine depicted what an atomic bomb would do to New York City—in gruesome detail

A German mint hard at work producing debased coinage designed to be palmed off on the nearest neighboring state, c.1620

“Kipper und Wipper”: Rogue Traders, Rogue Princes, Rogue Bishops and the German Financial Meltdown of 1621-23

It is tempting to think of the German hyperinflation of 1923 as a uniquely awful event, but it pales in comparison to what happened in the 17th century

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