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Mysteries

A modern-day view of Stirling Castle, the Scottish stronghold where the skeleton was found in 1997

A Medieval Man’s Injuries Reminded One Archaeologist of Modern-Day Car Crash Victims. They Turned Out to Be the Work of an English Trebuchet

A skeleton unearthed in Scotland likely belongs to a soldier struck by a high-speed projectile during Edward I’s 1304 siege of Stirling Castle. The man suffered more than 160 fractures

A Man Smoking and a Woman Drinking in a Courtyard, Pieter de Hooch, 1658-60, with the soldier missing from the table 

This Dutch Painting Showed a 17th-Century Drinking Game Until Someone Smudged Out a Player, Spoiling the Fun. A Museum Just Restored the Imbibing Soldier

Pieter de Hooch was known for his 17th-century portrayals of domestic life. Some scenes suggested scandal or taught a moral

Speedy called his wife, Frances, by many affectionate pet names, including "Meatball."

Cool Finds

This Box of 300 Love Letters Showed Up Out of the Blue. Who Was the Whimsical World War II Soldier Who Wrote Them?

Nobody knows who dropped Speedy Weber’s correspondence at a USO office in 2022. Researchers have finally tracked down two living relatives who remember him

The "Jane!" exhibition is on view at the Cantor Arts Center through May 18, 2028.

Women Who Shaped History

Stanford University’s Founding Matriarch Was a Travel-Loving Philanthropist Who Met a Tragic End. A New Exhibition Explores Her Life, Grief and Death by Poison

Jane Stanford’s legacy is the focus of a new showcase at the California university. The display features artifacts that have never previously been exhibited

The gold treasures found on the ship collectively weigh more than 21 ounces.

New Research

This Medieval Byzantine Shipwreck Boasts More Gold Treasures Than Any Other Vessel Found Beneath the Mediterranean

The vessel sank in the Adriatic Sea in the seventh or eighth century C.E. Its cargo included a gold signet ring likely associated with the emperor Heraclius and gold belts encrusted with rubies, emeralds and pearls

“This wreck is an absolute, untouched monument to 19th-century diplomacy and elite international relations in Europe,” says diver and researcher Pawel Truszynski.

Cool Finds

This Ship Sank in the Baltic Sea With Presents Bound for a Romanov Czar. Its Cargo Included Champagne, Luxury Mineral Water and Rare Meteorites

New research suggests that a shipwreck discovered off the coast of Sweden in 2024 may have been transporting gifts from the German Duchy of Nassau to Alexander II of Russia in the immediate aftermath of the Crimean War

A new study documents two incidents of orcas breaking sunfish into pieces.

Video Captures Orcas Ramming a Sunfish So Hard It Explodes. The Mysterious Behavior Might Be a Form of Play or Juvenile Care

In two incidents documented in Mexico’s Gulf of California, orcas worked together to blast sunfish into smithereens after they had killed the enormous animals

Archaeologist Gino Caspari holds an iron artifact recovered from one of the Menorca shipwrecks.

Take an Exclusive Look at Three Newly Discovered Medieval Shipwrecks in Menorca’s ‘Cove of Mysteries’

Meteorological tsunamis likely sank the 13th-century trading vessels, whose cargo included objects from both Christian kingdoms and Moorish communities on the Iberian Peninsula

Francesco I de' Medici, left, died suddenly in 1587. His brother Ferdinando I, right, succeeded him as grand duke of Tuscany.

Did This Duke Poison His Brother? A New DNA Analysis May Solve the Centuries-Old Medici Mystery

Researchers found evidence of malaria in Francesco I de’ Medici’s bones, leading them to argue “with scientific certainty” that it was disease, not arsenic, that led to his death in 1587

Researchers have virtually unwrapped a nearly five-foot-long segment of PHerc. 1667.

Scientists Have Deciphered the Surviving Fragments of a 2,000-Year-Old Philosophical Treatise Frozen in Time by Mount Vesuvius’ Eruption

The papyrus manuscript was part of a vast library preserved by volcanic ash. Now, the remaining passages—which examine ethics, knowledge and human nature—are accessible for the first time since 79 C.E.

The Mozart notebook was found in a stack of roughly 20 manuscripts at the National Library of France.

Cool Finds

Why Did the Handwriting in This 248-Year-Old Notebook Look Familiar? It Turned Out to Be a Forgotten Mozart Manuscript

While working as a tutor in 1778, the composer created seven short pieces for flute and harp with his student’s help. This month, audiences heard the works performed for the very first time

The two-wheeled wagon found in the grave is a particularly rare find.

Cool Finds

Construction in Germany Revealed the ‘Princely Grave’ of a Celtic Warrior Who Was Buried With Weapons and a Two-Wheeled Wagon

Archaeologists say the find proves “the previously only assumed presence of a local Celtic elite.” Grave goods also included gold jewelry and a jug imported from modern-day Tuscany

Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards, Bonifacio Bembo

See Visions of the Past and Future in This New York City Exhibition on the Renaissance Roots of Tarot Cards

The Morgan Library & Museum traces the history of beautifully illustrated tarot cards from their origins as a card game to modern occult fascination

Director Steven Spielberg on the set of Disclosure Day, his latest UFO-inspired film

What’s Behind Steven Spielberg’s Lifelong Obsession With Flying Saucers and Extraterrestrial Visitors?

Half a century after “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” the director returns to the subject of UFOs with “Disclosure Day.” His science fiction films are informed by his fascination with alien encounters in American suburbia

Elisenda of Montcada founded the Royal Monastery of St. Mary of Pedralbes in 1327. She was buried there after her death in 1364.

Archaeologists Excavating a Monastery in Spain Identified the Remains of a 14th-Century Queen—and Multiple Skeletons Buried in the Wrong Graves

The tomb of Elisenda of Montcada has long fascinated experts. But the team was surprised to learn that burials supposedly belonging to a medieval knight and abbess held entirely different individuals

A female blue crab with an acoustic telemetry tag on its shell. Scientists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center use telemetry tags to track the migration of blue crabs throughout the Chesapeake.

Young Blue Crabs Have Been Mysteriously Dwindling in the Chesapeake Bay for Years. This Winter, They Saw a Boost in Numbers. What’s Driving These Trends?

A recent report detailed a 50 percent drop in juvenile Chesapeake blue crabs since 2010. Then, a survey found a surprising surge in the young crustaceans this year

The Roman funerary marker in the custody of FBI New Orleans in November 2025

Cool Finds

Why Was This Ancient Roman Soldier’s Gravestone Hidden in a Louisiana Backyard? Archaeologists Solved the Mystery—and Helped Return the Artifact to Italy

The funerary marker, which surfaced on a New Orleans property last year, once belonged to a Roman soldier who died nearly 2,000 years ago. Officials repatriated the stone in a recent ceremony in Rome

The fresco, painted by Francisco Goya in 1798, depicts Saint Anthony of Padua performing a miracle. 

Stunning Frescoes in This Madrid Church Received a Facelift—But the Spanish Artist Buried Beneath Them Is Still Missing His Head

Goya’s frescoes are given new life in a church in Spain that also serves as the final resting place for most of the artist’s body. The mystery of his missing skull has inspired poems and artworks

The subject of this portrait is often identified as Mary Boleyn.

History Remembers Mary Boleyn as the Scandalous ‘Other Boleyn Girl.’ New Research Debunks the Myths Surrounding the Tudor Mistress

Sylvia Barbara Soberton’s latest book challenges the perception of Anne Boleyn’s sister as “promiscuous, intellectually incurious and unambitious”

A 19th-century painting of HMS Erebus, one of two ships involved in John Franklin's 1845 expedition to the Arctic

New Research

This Sailor From the Franklin Expedition Died in the Arctic in a Uniform That Didn’t Belong to Him. Now, DNA Has Revealed His Identity

New research has identified four members of the doomed 1845 search for the Northwest Passage, including the owner of a paper-stuffed wallet that has long mystified historians

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