History

The Masked Merriment of Mardi Gras

For centuries, the day’s revelry has featured the liberated feeling of hiding in plain view

February 12, 2013

How to Revive a Lost Language

By the year 2100, the human race will have lost about 50% of the languages alive today. Every fourteen days a language dies. There are some success stories

February 8, 2013

The History of the Flapper, Part 2: Makeup Makes a Bold Entrance

It’s the birth of the modern cosmetics business as young women look for beauty enhancers in a tube or jar

February 7, 2013

The History of the Flapper, Part 1: A Call for Freedom

The young, fashionable women of the 1920s define the dress and style of their peers in their own words

February 5, 2013

Parisian Women Legally Allowed to Wear Pants for the First Time in 200 Years

On January 31, France’s minister of women’s rights made if officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing pants in Paris

February 5, 2013

North Korea’s New Video Is Only Its Latest Propaganda About Attacking the U.S.

North Korea’s latest propaganda depicts their new rocket and a burning United States

February 5, 2013

A Brief History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing

How the wing went from a throwaway to a delicacy in 50 years

February 1, 2013

Much Ado About Nothing at the Equator

Just north of Quito stands a grand and glowing tribute to one of Ecuador’s proudest features: the Equator. The problem is, it was built in the wrong place

January 30, 2013

Falernum: The Elusive Cocktail Syrup to Name Drop At Your Next Party

This tiki-era mixer, best served with rum, has a hazy past and an island-y bite

January 29, 2013

Sonar Uncovers Amazing Photograph of Sunken Civil War Ship

The USS Hatteras, sunk 150 years ago, was discovered and photographed recently using 3D sonar

January 23, 2013

The Russian Government Once Funded a Scientist’s Quest To Make an Ape-Human Hybrid

In 1926, a famed Russian biologist was “hell-bent” on creating an ape-human hybrid

January 23, 2013

NASA’s Curiosity Team Gives Us a Geeky Reason To Go to the Inauguration Parade

Although the rover itself could not make the trip from Mars, a full-size model will roll in the parade alongside the real-life crew

January 18, 2013

Braving the Pan-American Highway of Death

Along the roadway in Peru, hand-built memorials to accident victims occur almost as regularly as the kilometer markers themselves

January 15, 2013

Is America a Nation of Soul Food Junkies?

Filmmaker Bryan Hurt explores what makes soul food so personal, starting with his own father’s health struggle, in a PBS film premiering tonight

January 14, 2013

The Fisher Space Pen Boldly Writes Where No Man Has Written Before

The Fisher Space Pen has been made famous by Apollo astronauts and Jerry Seinfeld. But just how does it work? And is NASA really spend millions making it?

January 11, 2013

President Obama’s Autopen: When is an Autograph Not an Autograph?

When the President signed the fiscal cliff deal from 4,800 miles away, he did it with the help of a device that dates back to Thomas Jefferson

January 8, 2013

A Short Bike Ride in the Peruvian Andes

The author kicks off 2013 with a 1,100-mile cycling journey through the Andes from Lima, Peru, to Ecuador’s lofty capital of Quito

January 3, 2013

You Know You Want To Snoop Around Marilyn Monroe’s Secret FBI File

Freshly un-redacted FBI files paint Monroe as a bit of a communist

December 31, 2012

Educating Americans for the 21st Century

This School Is Getting Girls Into Physics

The gap between boys and girls in math and engineering starts early and continues through college. But a school in the UK is trying to buck that trend

December 31, 2012

Adam Lanza’s DNA Will Tell Us Nothing

Genetics is a powerful tool, but it will not tell us why Adam Lanza killed those people

December 31, 2012