From the Archive

If you were serious about producing a male heir around the turn of the 20th century, there was plenty of questionable advice to follow.

Are you ready for some Ethics? World Geography? Data Science?

This stranger-than-fiction saga involves a secret dig, a massive success, and unheard-of political corruption.

Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading

They don't make mouse traps like they used to.

Those breathy vowels are so 'ooh la la.'

Encyclopedia Brittannica via Wikipedia // Public Domain

Sometimes it's ok to swear.

It's often several hundreds of dollars more than you would likely actually pay for the room. Why?

Image Composite: Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Commons

The process of discovery leaves behind a trail of ideas that didn’t pass muster, and the road to just about every breakthrough we’ve made is littered with alternate versions that got left behind.

We used to eat mock turtle, calf's feet, and peacock, among other unusual delicacies.

If you’re an experienced farmer who likes sheep more than people, a far-flung volcanic archipelago in the South Atlantic has the perfect job for you.

In order to re-create the sonic history of New York City, historian Emily Thompson has created an interactive website called The Roaring Twenties, exploring the historical soundscape of New York City in the 1920s.

Many of the world’s currencies take their names from fairly predictable origins—like weights and measures or precious metals, for example—but the currency of Tonga, the pa‘anga, has a rather unusual history.

What happens when a skunk sprays another skunk? We asked the one man who would know.

Humans have long been obsessed with the idea of man-like machines they could dominate—or be dominated by. But the word 'robot' is just 90 years old, and the blockbuster play that introduced the word has long since been forgotten.