The Lost City of Heracleion
Once a bustling metropolis, this long-lost Egyptian city flooded, sank, and was forgotten -- until archeologists rediscovered it.
Regrowing Germany’s Trees After WWII
The cities of Dresden and Hamburg saw their green spaces decimated by WWII, but each city grew back its trees in a very different way.
The Pirate-y Life of Ferdinand Magellan
Magellan’s voyage in search of the “Spice Islands” was marked by storms, sharks, and scurvy—plus multiple attempts at mutiny.
How Janet Flanner’s “High-Class Gossip” Changed America
The journalist's witty Paris Letters for the New Yorker helped establish Americans' feelings of superiority over Europe.
How the Paris Catacombs Solved a Cemetery Crisis
One of the most popular tourist destinations in Paris—the Catacombs—was started as a solution to the intrusion of death upon daily life.
Will the U.S. Ever Catch a High-Speed Train?
Over 20 countries have high-speed train travel, carrying 1.6 billion passengers a year. The United States is lagging behind.
Should Museums Display Shrunken Heads?
Tsantsas, or shrunken human heads, remind us of how museums have often been founded on a violent trade in indigenous culture.
Brazil’s Maroon State
For nearly a century, Quilombo of Palmares was an Afro-Brazilian state, populated and run by people who had freed themselves from slavery.
The Amoral Scientist
Fritz Haber was a chemist who made discoveries that improved global agriculture… but also helped spawn the modern era of chemical warfare.
The Trouble with Absinthe
When temperance advocates won the ban on absinthe in 1915, many of them saw it as the first step in a broader anti-drinking campaign.