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The history of true crime consumption can be traced all the way back to the early 1500s. Source:  Sved Oliver/ Adobe Stock

Morbid Fascination: The Birth of the True Crime Genre

For many true crime junkies, podcasts are the way to go to get your next fix. But before podcasts and streaming documentaries, what did people do to get their true crime docs? When did true crime...
The Urdubegis were female warriors tasked with protecting the Mughal emperor and his harem. Representational image. Source: Public domain

Urdubegis: The Forgotten Female Fighters of the Mughal Empire

When we think of the empowerment of women, we usually think about Western culture. Nevertheless, the East has had its fair share of female role models. While Islam has historically given men the role...
Res Gestae Sargonis: Sargon The Great King Of Akkad

Res Gestae Sargonis: Sargon The Great King Of Akkad

The Akkadian Empire, founded by Sargon the Great, was the very first empire the world had seen, established in ancient Mesopotamia in about 2370 BC. This empire was remembered as having been...
Battle of Waterloo soldiers fighting at the Hougoumont Chateau as portrayed in a watercolor by Denis Dighton. Source: Public Domain

June 1815: Did Dead Waterloo Soldiers Become Fertilizer? Probably!

A new study published in the Journal of Conflict Archaeology has suggested that many remains of the roughly 60,000 Waterloo soldiers who died in the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815 may have been...
This is an image of the mass grave found beneath an Irish pub in Cork, Ireland, which a noted bone expert concluded was an extremely violent mass death! Source: © John Cronin & Associates

‘Bone Collector’ Sleuth Says Violent Deaths Evident in Mass Grave Under Irish Bar!

A bone expert investigating a mass grave in Ireland has found clear evidence of hyper-violence, including smashed bones and bound limbs. Last year, beneath Nancy Spain’s Public House, Barrack Street...
Flesh-eating sarcophagus, Assos, Turkey. Source: Häferlkaffee / Twitter

‘Meat Eater’ Sarcophagi in Turkey Turned Bodies to Skeletons in 40 Days

In the ancient city of Assos in Turkey there existed a bizarre phenomenon – the stone sarcophagi within the Assos necropolis could decompose bodies unusually fast. Instead of taking between 50 and...
The Corpses of the De Witt Brothers by Jan de Baen. (Public domain)

Johan de Witt: The Failed Politician who was Cannibalized by his Opponents

Even after a successful political career, Johan de Witt has gone down in history for having suffered one of the most bizarre assassinations in history and one of the few recorded cases of cannibalism...
The ornate Viking sword hilt is now pieced back together. Source: Lise Chantrier Aasen/Archeological Museum of Norway

Two Parts of the Same, Huge Viking Sword Separated 1200 Years Ago are Reunited

Two small chunks of metal, buried separately but near each other, have turned out to be parts of the same ornate Viking sword. Separated 1,200 years ago, the first part of the sword ‘Queen of Gausel...
A new study reveals the role droughts played in the development and spread of Islam. Source:  Leo Lintang / Adobe Stock

Power Vacuum Caused by Extreme Drought Led to the Spread of Islam

A power vacuum caused by an extreme drought 1,500 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula led to political unrest, war, and societal change. These were the preconditions that led to the development and...
Christopher Columbus and His Son at La Rábida by Eugène Delacroix (1839) National Gallery of Art (Public Domain)

The Papal Public Relations Operation Behind Christopher Columbus’ Discovery Of The New World

Was there a Papal conspiracy around Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America? Is it possible that the history of the ‘discovery of America’ has been told omitting details that only now re-emerge...
The Stone of the Pregnant Woman at Baalbek quarry. Source: Lodo27 / CC BY-SA 3.0

Baalbek’s Stone of the Pregnant Woman: How Was This 1000-Ton Megalith Moved?!

One of the biggest feats of Roman ingenuity lies in Lebanon’s historic Bekaa Valley, home to the ancient city of Heliopolis, now Baalbek. Here, the 2,000-year-old Temple of Jupiter was built on top...
The 17th-century tulipmania madness was not unlike the history of Bitcoin so far because in both cases a speculative bubble was created. Without spilling the beans, tulipmania ended suddenly and badly and put a tarnish on the Dutch Golden Age! Source: momosama / Adobe Stock

Tulipmania: When Tulips Cost More than a House!

Used frequently as a warning, almost, to deter people from shifting towards cryptocurrencies, particularly the Bitcoin boom, “tulipmania” is often recognized as the first recorded speculative bubble...
The interior of a mudhif in southern Iraq. Source: TasfotoNL / Adobe Stock

Saving Iraqi Mudhif Reed Architecture from Oblivion

Take a look around someone’s house and you can learn a great deal about their way of life and their culture. This is true for historic dwellings as well, and the Iraqi mudhif reed house is no...
Berenger Sauniere. Source: Angel Aroca Escámez / CC BY-SA 3.0

Treasure, Jesus and an Elaborate Hoax: The Story of Bérenger Saunière

A potentially corrupt priest, an ancestral link to Jesus Christ and hidden treasure, the story of Bérenger Saunière and Rennes-le-Château is like something one would expect to see in movie theaters,...
Viking sword in a Norse landscape…or is it? 	Source: James Thew / Adobe Stock

What’s a Viking Sword? What’s not? The Distinctions of Norse Weaponry

A scourge of early medieval Europe, the Vikings were a fearsome group. The very thought of a Viking sword slashing before you conjures images of fearless warriors raiding and pillaging villages,...
Cave art depicting two figures copulating from Jabbaren, Algeria. Source: Trust for African Rock Art / Fair Use

Neanderthal-Human Sex Caused a Million Covid Deaths

About 60,000 years ago, a human had a sexual encounter with a Neanderthal. Now, a genetic scientist has claimed that this single sexual act caused the deaths of up to a million people during the...
Sigurd the Mighty is said to have been killed by a severed head. Source: Nomad_Soul / Adobe Stock

Sigurd the Mighty Was Killed by a Severed Head

The Norse sagas are filled with astonishing death scenes. In his book Laughing Shall I Die, Lives and Deaths of the Great Vikings , Tom Shippey explains that the defiant Viking attitude to death was...
Work on the HS2 rail project across the UK landscape has once again yielded treasure with the discovery of a major Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Wendover, Buckinghamshire. The site has revealed 138 graves, countless preserved burial goods, and many valuable historical artifacts. Source: HS2

Huge, Artifact-rich Anglo-Saxon Cemetery Found on England’s HS2 Line!

Archaeologists who’ve launched exploratory digs along the path of the HS2 high-speed rail project in England have made some fascinating and amazing discoveries. The latest addition to the list of...
Viking ships like these were built, serviced, loaded, and unloaded at Viking shipyards across Scandinavia, and the recent Birka Viking shipyard discovery is a "first of its kind” in the world of Viking ports.	Source: Dimart_Graphics / Adobe Stock

Unique Viking Shipyard Found Showing A “Maritime Cultural Landscape”

An archaeological investigation of maritime remains connected to the Viking Age town of Birka in Sweden carried out since August 2020 has revealed a “first of its kind” Viking shipyard. Birka, also...
A spectacular example of the mysterious “living and moving” trovants of Romania, a rare and complex geological formation. Source: Nicu Buculei / CC BY-SA 3.0

Romania’s Enigmatic Trovants: Living Rocks That Grow and Move!

Roughly six million years ago, paleo-earthquakes created a type of geological phenomenon called trovants. They are also known as the stones of Costesti, after their most famous location in Romania,...
An empty toilet paper holder! Source: Lasse Kristensen / Adobe Stock

No Toilet Paper! Do Any of these Ancient Methods Work for You?

Can you imagine waking up in a world with no toilet paper? What would you use? Can you imagine what people did before toilet paper became so ubiquitous? Toilet paper is among the most essential...
These images represent just a few of the spectacular finds beneath an ancient district of Cairo, Egypt, which included first-of-its-kind evidence of King Khufu from roughly 4,500 years ago! Source: Ministry of Antiquities

“First of Its Kind” 2600-BC King Khufu Evidence Found In Cairo!

Artifacts belonging to the era of King Khufu (also known as Cheops), who ruled sometime in the 26th century BC or nearly 4,500 years ago, have been discovered in Cairo’s Ayn-Shams neighborhood by the...
Studying ancient plague genomes, a multidisciplinary team of researchers have finally traced the Black Death origin location to this part of the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Source: © Lyazzat Musralina / MPG

Medieval Black Death Origin Traced to Central Asia

The Black Death or Black Plague killed somewhere between 75 and 200 million people in just seven years, from 1346 to 1353. About 50 million died in Europe alone, which made it the epicenter of the...
One of the two more ships the underwater robot found while diving at the San Jose wreck site. Source: Presidency of the Republic of Colombia

Deep-Sea Robot Revealed Treasures of $20 Billion on San Jose Wreck

Billions of dollars of gold, silver and emeralds encrust a tiny patch of the Caribbean Sea. In 1708, during the War of Spanish Succession (1701 to 1714), a British Navy warship sailing from Panama...

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