History
A historian identifies the worst year in human history
The year 536 ushered in the coldest decade in thousands of years and started a century of economic devastation.
Why Einstein is a “peerless genius” and Hawking is an “ordinary genius”
Why some people are considered geniuses while other equally impressive people are not seems largely arbitrary.
How to be a techno-optimist
Technology will not save the world, and it is inherently neither good nor bad. But, when tech is coupled to human virtue, good will prevail.
We need to know about progress if we’re concerned about the world’s large problems
Our World in Data explains their mission to publish the “research and data to make progress against the world’s largest problems.”
The US Civil War drastically reshaped how Americans deal with death – will the pandemic?
How do American's attitudes towards death change when they are confronted with such enormous losses?
Longtermism’s perspective on humanity’s past, present, and future
If we manage to avoid a large catastrophe, we can see ourselves as living at the early beginnings of human history.
Derinkuyu: Mysterious underground city in Turkey found in man’s basement
A basement renovation project led to the archaeological discovery of a lifetime: the Derinkuyu Underground City, which housed 20,000 people.
A papyrus reveals how the Great Pyramid was built
The papyrus contains an eye-witness account of the gathering of materials for the Great Pyramid.
X-rays may save Henry VIII’s resurrected warship, the last of its kind
Henry VIII’s favorite warship survived centuries under the sea. New x-ray scanning technology will hopefully help preserve the Mary Rose for centuries more.
Lasers reveal hundreds of Mayan and Olmec ceremonial centers
Archaeologists are hunting for — and finding — previously hidden ancient structures in lidar data collected by planes and drones.