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History / World History

The United Nations in New York City.

The Surprisingly Colorful Spaces Where the World’s Biggest Decisions Get Made (PHOTOS)

Photographer Luca Zanier looks at the view from where the decision-makers sit

The helper robot brings the child of the future something to drink in bed (1981)

My Robot Helper of Tomorrow

Forget flying cars and jetbacks, whatever happened to my cereal-serving robot?

Inside the volcano's round chamber, Jonas Lohmann and two other graduate students from the Brandenburg Technical University doused fires with lighter fluid and smoke powder to create the columns of smoke that streamed from the volcano all afternoon and evening.

That Time a German Prince Built an Artificial Volcano

A 18th century German prince visited Mt. Vesuvius and built a replica of it. 200 years later, a chemistry professor brings it back to life

Hugo Gernsback’s 1922 proposal for a monument to Alexander Graham Bell

Crowdfunding a Museum for Alexander Graham Bell in 1922

Long before the age of Kickstarter, Hugo Gernsback used his magazine to garner interest for a monument devoted to the inventor of the telephone

At Dorney Lake, scullers try out for Britain’s Olympic women’s rowing team.

300 Years of Rowing on the Thames

There must be something in the water at Eton, where rowing rules as the sport of choice

Kayakers on the Thames in London go with the flow near Parliament and Big Ben.

The Long and Winding History of the Thames

Float down England’s longest river, from its origin in the Cotswolds to its ramble through London, a journey through centuries of “liquid history”

J. Allyn Rosser is an American poet and currently teaches at Ohio University.

Summer Olympics Look, a Poem

Poet J. Allyn Rosser’s new piece on watching the Olympic Games

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?

None

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?

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