Wikimedia
Our roads are full of potholes but at least they don’t smell of horse pee.
Amputees in 16th century Europe commissioned iron hands from artisans, many of whom had never made prostheses before.
Lernestål, Erik, Livrustkammaren/SHM
Gunpowder warfare kicked off a new era of invasive surgery and prosthetic technology in Western medicine.
Netflix
Even before writing was invented, oral stories had to be constantly told and retold to be passed down through hundreds of generations.
Drawing shows men making shoes at the Philadelphia Almshouse, circa 1899.
Alice Barber Stephens/Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Alfred Bendiner Memorial Collection
Amid rising unemployment, inflation and poverty in the 1830s, Philadelphia taxpayers believed welfare scammers were bleeding coffers dry. Poor lists from 1829 show they were wrong.
El Castillo at Chichén Itzá.
Rodrigo Barquera
At the heart of the Maya civilisation were sacred sites where ritual sacrifices took place. A new DNA analysis reveals more about this practice and Maya genetic legacy.
Liam Daniel/Neftlix
In the Regency period there was advice for women of all sizes.
The Beatles, with stand-in drummer Jimmie Nicol, at their Melbourne press conference on June 14 1964.
AAP Image/Supplied by the Powerhouse Museum, Arts Centre Melbourne, Laurie Richards
Charming and irreverent as they were, The Beatles themselves were only part of the reason the tour was so memorable.
The Singapore Stone.
Antony Souter/Alamy Stock Photo
Despite its name, this sandstone slab is not a simple stone. It was once part of a monument, an ancient epigraph measuring three by three metres carrying about 50 lines of text.
A colorized engraving depicts enslavers selling enslaved people in the 19th-century South.
Corbis via Getty Images
Human bondage was big business in the antebellum US, and men weren’t the only ones cashing in.
Bathing in the Middle Ages.
Codex Manesse, UBH Cod. Pal. germ. 848.
King Cnut has the dubious honour of being the first person recorded in English history to have been disturbed by something frustratingly urgent just as he was about to enjoy a bath.
In popular culture, the eruption is usually depicted as an apocalyptic event.
Photo 12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The story of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is no longer one of annihilation; it also includes the people who managed to escape the city.
Eloise wearing her summer muff in Bridgerton.
Liam Daniel/Netflix
Silk muffs were often made at home and offered women a blank canvas for sartorial self-expression.
Two dodecahedra and an icosahedron on display in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany.
Kleon3/Wiki Commons
From neolithic stone balls to Roman cosmetic grinders, here are five finds that have baffled archaeologists.
Photograph of Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth in Ostend, summer 1936, likely taken by Zweig’s secretary, Lotte Altmann.
Wikimedia Commons
Zweig’s optimistic vision of a Europe without borders has stood the test of time, and still has much to teach us today.
Transworld/YamabikaY/Shutterstock
‘Gemstones are the earth’s creation, but they are a human fascination.’
(L-R) The Princess of Wales on the cover of Tatler, Queen Victoria by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, and a detail of Vices Overlook’d in the New Proclamation by James Gillray.
Hannah Uzor/Tatler, Royal Collection Trust / National Portrait Gallery. Montage created with Canva
British monarchs have grappled with issues of representation, accuracy and flattery in portraits since the Middle Ages.
Stevie Wonder.
Getty Images
Ghana has long attracted African Americans who have suffered racial injustices in the US.
Photo storage app features can determine which photos users are more often exposed to from within their collection.
(Shutterstock)
In April 2022, iPhone users were upset to learn about a restrictive feature on iPhones. The blocking of photos taken at sensitive locations raised concerns about how technologies manage our memories.
Remnants of Hurricane Fred sent rivers out of their banks across western North Carolina in 2021.
North Carolina DOT
In the mountains, heavy downpours can be devastating, especially when storms hit back to back. .
Tacuinum Sanitatis: a 14th-century medieval handbook of health.
Album / Alamy Stock Photo
By 43AD, when southern Britain became a Roman colony under emperor Claudius, the island was populated by speakers of several Celtic languages.