Mark Robert Rank, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
With low-scoring games and a preponderance of deflected shots, randomness is much more likely to color NHL teams’ records than those of squads in the other four major US pro sports leagues.
Fighting for voter access is an inevitable part of any democracy, from ancient Rome to the US today. Roman legislators were able to thwart elite political sway by introducing written ballots.
Disregarded as ‘fakes’ for decades, new analysis of coins bearing the face of a mysterious emperor is providing answers about a heady gap in Roman history.
Two new coins released by the Royal Australian Mint celebrate Indigenous astronomers, who have used the stars to map changing seasons, inform the behaviours of plants and animals, and encode Law.
Coins have always conveyed a message and, helpfully for historians, they are anchored to a specific time and space. Rome’s emperors used coins to push their political agendas.
Currency first hit the scene thousands of years ago. An anthropologist explains the early origins and uses of money – and how archaeological finds fill in our picture of the past.