Feature Channels: History

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An international team led by scientists at Harvard Medical School, the University of Florence, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology analyzed DNA from the remains of five people who died in the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 CE and were cast in plaster nearly two millennia later. Researchers retrieved the DNA in conjunction with the Archaeological Park of Pompeii during restoration of 86 damaged casts in 2015.

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"Painting to Scale," the latest exhibition at the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, boasts rarely shown, large-scale artwork from the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union. The exhibition runs from Wednesday, Nov. 13, through Oct. 5, 2025, in the lower Dodge wing at the Zimmerli, 71 Hamilton St.

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As one expert at the George Washington University reflects on the 2024 campaign season and the uncertainty that lays ahead, he explores the question: what does political rhetoric owe democracy? ...

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The American Physical Society has recognized the Graphite Reactor, located at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as an APS historic site. APS President Young-Kee Kim presented a plaque commemorating the recognition on Monday, Nov. 4, the 81st anniversary of the reactor’s first achieving criticality in 1943.

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A Venezuelan journalist and lover of the arts, Sofía Ímber will be honored at the Kislak Center at the University of Miami.

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Professor Étienne Ghys, Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences and Emeritus Research Director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), delivered a thought-provoking HKIAS Distinguished Lecture on "Soccer Balls: Their History, Geometries, and Aerodynamics" on 30 October 2024 at City University of Hong Kong.

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The Path to Paralysis: How American Politics Became Nasty, Dysfunctional, and a Threat to the Republic, released in mid-October by Anthem Press, examines the changes in political culture that have moved the United States from The Great Society to the U.S. Capitol Insurrection in less than 60 years. Polarization and toxicity are now common in a country that is 50/50 red/blue, and “compromise” is considered a dirty word.

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Researchers' analysis of “found” lidar data from a completely unstudied corner of the Maya civilization revealed countless settlements that archaeologists never knew about. The study demonstrates, once and for all, that there’s still plenty of the Maya world to uncover.

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The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has debuted a new educational website that chronicles the evolution of the City of Little Rock through more than a century of history. Funded by two grants totaling more than $375,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Mapping Little Rock History project allows users to explore key moments in the city's expansion.

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Newly appointed geography professor Benjamin Gwinneth uses innovative geochemical methods, such as measuring fecal molecules, to understand how climate variability shaped ancient populations.

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute will feature "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style" in its 2025 spring exhibition, exploring the history and cultural significance of Black dandyism. ...

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Archaeological surveys led by scientists at Washington University in St. Louis suggest that coastal and underwater cave sites in southern Sicily contain important new clues about the path and fate of early human migrants to the island.

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An Atikamekw First Nation community is collaborating with UdeM researchers to create a digital platform to pass on ancestral knowledge about the land.

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In this episode of Curious by Nature, we sat down with Dr. Elise Wang, an assistant professor at Cal State University, Fullerton, and a medievalist who specialized in the literature, history, and lore of the medieval period. Dr. Wang discussed her work teaching early literature courses and her research into conspiracy theories, examining them as narratives.

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Fifty years ago—on November 24, 1974—only a few years after humans’ first steps on the moon, a young paleoanthropologist, Donald Johanson, walking in the dusty landscape of the Afar Rift Valley of Ethiopia discovered the first human ancestor fossil who reliably walked upright on two feet—“Lucy.”

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A new, wide-ranging exploration of human remains casts doubt on a long-standing theory in archaeology known as the Kurgan hypothesis—which, among other claims, suggests that humans first domesticated horses as early as the fourth millennium B.C.

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The WCS Library and Archives, based at the Bronx Zoo, released its newly digitized Department of Tropical Research (DTR) Film Collection. The project was funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources’ (CLIR) Recordings at Risk grant, supported by the Mellon Foundation.

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The Constitution turns 237 today. ...

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The University of Arkansas at Little Rock has started a community archaeology project on campus, inviting local residents to join forces with students and faculty in uncovering the rich history of the area.

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When Japanese samurai repelled the Mongols, their victories were attributed to typhoons whipped up by divine forces. Now, Ph.D. candidate Jérémy Le Blanc-Gauthier is taking a fresh look at the legend.