China had a long history of astronomy before the arrival of Europeans, but the politics of absolute rule led to the eventual embrace of Western methods.

Well-researched stories from Nautilus, Knowable Magazine, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

Without formal training as an architect, Gray created magnificent designs that sensitively blended traditional craft with a modern aesthetic.

Kidnapped and sold into slavery, Mbarak Mombée was critical to the success of the most celebrated nineteenth-century European expeditions in Africa.

Galvanized by an act of racial violence, the band A Grain of Sand brought a new version of Asian American activism and identity to the folk music scene.

Scientists’ approach to dating past eclipses changed when they stopped treating classical texts as authoritative records.

“Chicago May” was a classic swindler who conned her way around the world in the early twentieth century. She was also a sign of hard times.

All (or at least a lot) of what you need to know before going to this year’s Academy Awards watch party.

The submersible Alvin is sixty years old this year. Numerous overhauls and upgrades have kept the craft going down (and coming back up!).

Celebrated and damned as the “father of the atomic bomb,” theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer lived a complicated scientific and political life.