The Past

Decades ago, a disaster left three million acres of land uninhabitable and killed between 85,600 and 240,000 people. Chernobyl? No. Banqiao dam in China.

A single knife is sometimes worth more than a thousand armies.

Long before the birth of Julius Caesar, the Roman Republic appointed all-powerful dictators to protect their state in times of crisis. They were remarkably self-restrained and obedient to the Roman Constitution.

But scientists have found it again.

Exile is a kind of death of who you once were.

An influential series of books argues that the history of the world is the history of generations. Is it right?

This necropsy represents an early entry in what would become a tradition of performing autopsies to consider an individual’s sanctity.

Gladiators fought in rounds, and there were referees to enforce rules. Only rarely were gladiators killed.

Various environmental phenomena can play tricks on our brain.

The clash of academic archaeology and what might be called folk archaeology comes into stark focus at Stonehenge.

Destruction of the Ukrainian dam unleashed a catastrophic flood—and surfaced centuries of cultural heritage. Now there’s a call not to rebuild it.

By the end, even his mom wanted him gone.

Bathtubs and toilets each got their own rooms until health professionals urged architects to put all the plumbing in one room.

Many countries' histories are governed by the familiar demographic story of growth, industrialization, and decline. But not France.

These astounding inventions show that civilizations of the past were a lot more advanced than we might have thought.

"Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, and Knox the man who buys the beef." Read the story of 19th-century Scotland's corpse dealers.

Tikal, one of the biggest cities the Maya ever built, was home to a vast and flourishing society.

A woman’s name would undermine the credibility of the mission. Names of former Nazis, however, were no problem.

Discover how the threads of myth, legend, and artistry have been woven together by storytellers to craft history.

Serving as the inspiration for the modern horror classic “The Blair Witch Project,” what does our fascination with this unsolvable mystery tell us about our modern psyche?

The young and healthy were not just as likely to die as the old and frail, according to a new analysis.

Considering the astronomical occupational risks, life insurance was prohibitively expensive for the first NASA astronauts.

China has always been one of the world’s wealthiest nations, but Chinese wealth looks different across the country’s eventful history.

The Pan-American Highway began a century ago with a vision of unfettered motor-vehicle access between Alaska and Tierra del Fuego. What happened to the dream?

The Persian Constitutional Revolution made unlikely allies and enemies of missionaries, ayatollahs, the shah, and his Russian ambassadors. Its legacy shaped modern-day Iran.

In ancient Rome, collective bathing was the norm. In the West today, it’s the exception — and that’s too bad.

Was the terror of Biscayne Bay a man who escaped slavery, an African chieftain, or a marketing ploy that went viral?

The smartest person in the world was Isaac Newton, a true polymath whose brilliance never has been, nor ever will be, surpassed.

France’s notorious disregard for washing gradually changed as military authorities and public schools promoted a modern regime of cleanliness.

Australian soldiers fighting the Japanese recruited native New Guineans to their campaign.