In June 1859 an American settler on San Juan Island shot a pig that kept raiding his potatoes. Within weeks, US troops and British warships faced off over a vague line in a treaty. How the Pig War nearly began, and why nobody fired.
On November 14, 1963, a fishing crew off Iceland watched a volcano rise out of the sea. The island it built, Surtsey, was closed to all but scientists before the eruption ended, and it has been showing how life colonizes new land ever since.
In St. Louis in 1904, the Olympic marathon was won by a man kept going with strychnine, egg whites and brandy, after the first finisher was caught having ridden in a car. The race official’s own report tells the story.
Fresh apples, bundles of carrots, the last sunflowers of the season and jars of local honey: this market stall has
Jake Schneider has ALS and Neuralink’s seventh brain implant. He now steers a power wheelchair with his thoughts.
Hello, and welcome to this week’s roundup. This week on Aglena: a horse that seemed to do math, a 5,300-year-old
A portable projector turns any blank wall, bedroom ceiling or backyard sheet into a 100-inch screen, and it packs away
On December 7, 1941, a damaged Japanese fighter came down on Niihau, an island that had not heard about Pearl Harbor. Six days later two men were dead, and the island’s Hawaiians had ended it themselves.
In May 1962 a fire at a borough dump crept into the old coal mines under Centralia, Pennsylvania. It defeated every attempt to stop it, emptied the town, and is still burning.
Dug up by looters in 1999 and seized in a Swiss hotel bar in 2002, the Nebra sky disc may be the oldest known picture of the night sky.
An arrow is spinning on a row of compass tiles. It starts pointing North, and it always turns clockwise from
In July 1897 three Swedes lifted off from Svalbard in a leaking hydrogen balloon, bound for the North Pole. Their fate stayed a mystery for 33 years.
A great hair dryer is one of those gifts people use every single day and rarely buy for themselves. The
In 1940 four teenagers slid into a hole above Montignac and found Ice Age paintings. Within 23 years the crowds had nearly ruined them, and Lascaux was shut.
In September 1991 two hikers spotted a body in the melting ice of the Ötztal Alps. He turned out to be 5,300 years old, and he had been murdered.
For nearly 50 years the US military used the Hawaiian island of Kahoʻolawe as a target. In 1976, nine people landed on its beach and started the fight to win it back.
Seven wireless earbuds compared, from the $43 CMF Buds 2 Plus to AirPods Pro 3, Sony WF-1000XM6 and Bose QuietComfort Ultra, using expert lab tests and Amazon data.
In the summer of 1518, dozens of people in Strasbourg could not stop dancing. The city’s records tell a stranger, quieter story than the legend.
Sir Patrick Stewart, Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek: The Next Generation, has died at 86. A celebration of his life, his advocacy and his wit.
On May 22, 1960, a magnitude 9.5 earthquake struck southern Chile, the strongest ever recorded. Its tsunami crossed the Pacific, and a landslide lake nearly drowned Valdivia.
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