History

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July 6, 2020

Civil Rights Pioneer Leona Tate Is Turning School She Helped Desegregate Into Center for Equality

One November morning in 1960, four first-grade girls broke ground when they set foot in their new schools. Flanked by U.S. Marshals and mobbed by angry protestors, six-year-olds Leona Tate, Gail Etienne, Tessie Prevost, and Ruby Bridges walked toward two all-white institutions, kickstarting the desegregation process in New Orleans—making history one step at a time.

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July 2, 2020

Researchers Examine Plants Brought Back to Life From 32,000-Year-Old Seeds

Thanks to the work of squirrels, researchers in Siberia were able to grow viable Silene stenophylla plants from 32,000-year-old seeds.

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June 25, 2020

Ancient Scythian Shoe Preserved for 2,300 Years Discovered in the Altai Mountains

The allure of ancient artifacts has intrigued historians and art historians alike, but rarely do archaeologists come across age-old remnants...

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June 22, 2020

Rare Book Collector Reveals Tibetan Book Printed Before the Gutenberg Bible

The Gutenberg Printing Press truly revolutionized western society with its introduction of mass produced printed materials for a relatively cheap price, which helped encourage literacy among the lower classes. However, the practice of printing books had actually been occurring long before 1450 in the Far East. A rare book collector on Twitter recently debuted a Sino-Tibetan “concertina-folded book” that is estimated to have been printed in Beijing around 1410.

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June 16, 2020

Medieval Italian Village Sunken in Lake Will Resurface for the First Time in 27 Years

It’s not every day that you get the chance to the roam the streets of a medieval ghost town, but...

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June 13, 2020

5 “Splendiferous” Facts About the Beloved British Author Roald Dahl

It's hard to imagine a writer more inventive than Roald Dahl.

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June 9, 2020

This Rare 1894 Photograph Shows a Young Indigenous Woman Smiling at the Viewer

In the early age of photography, portraits of people were few and far between, but they had one thing in common: serious faces. Nowadays, you’d expect to see an emotionless face in these old-timey photographs, which is why the recent discovery of an image of a young woman smiling from nearly 130 years ago is really unusual and utterly fascinating.

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June 8, 2020

Learn How the ‘Federal Art Project’ Gave American Artists Hope During the Great Depression

In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, American morale was at an all-time low.

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June 7, 2020

How John James Audubon Completely Changed the Way We Look at ‘Birds of America’

Birds have long been a source of fascination for artists, but perhaps no artist has had more of an influence...

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June 6, 2020

Raise the Curtains for the Show-Stopping History of Theater

When it comes to the performing arts, the theater often takes center stage. Encompassing everything from dramatic plays to puppet shows, this versatile practice has existed since ancient times and enchanting audiences with expressive acting for thousands of years. Here, we take a look at the history of the age-old craft.

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