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A Toddler Just Found A 3,800-Year-Old Canaanite Amulet At The Biblical Battleground Of David And Goliath

During a family trip to Tel Azekah in Israel, a three-year-old girl came across a 3,800-year-old Canaanite amulet. The archaeological site is mentioned in the Bible as the location of the battle between David and the Philistine giant Goliath.

The stone artifact depicts scarabs, beetles sacred to ancient Egyptians, adding to the long list of evidence that attests to the close cultural ties between Canaan and Egypt during the Bronze Age.

Ziv Nitzan of Moshav Ramot Meir, Israel, was on a hike wit...
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The Extraordinary Story Of André The Giant, From His Feats In The Wrestling Ring To 'The Princess Bride'

André the Giant’s name certainly fit him. Standing at over seven feet tall and weighing more than 500 pounds, he was often billed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World” — and his size propelled him to great heights.

In the 1970s and ’80s, André René Roussimoff dominated the global wrestling scene. However, it was his charismatic personality that made him an international superstar. Eventually, he used this popularity to make the transition into acting, famously starring as Fezzik in The Princess B...
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From Pinup Girls To Beatniks, See 44 Colorized Photos That Capture The 1950s

After World War II, a new status quo emerged. The United States and the Soviet Union rose up as two of the most powerful nations on Earth culturally, economically, and militarily. But despite their cooperation during the war, the two nations’ ideals were quite different.

Even though some in America had once attempted to isolate the country from global affairs, there was no denying that the country was now at the forefront of global politics. But as the United States tried to exert its influence...
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Researchers Illuminate The Mysteries Behind Roman-Era Sacrifices Of At Least 140 Dogs In A Quarry Pit In England

Archaeological excavations at the former Animal Husbandry Center of Nescot College that were conducted in 2015 revealed a startling mystery: a Roman-era quarry pit filled with a staggering number of dog remains. In total, researchers found 5,436 bones belonging to at least 140 individual dogs — one of the largest assemblages of canine remains ever found in Roman Britain.

But for the better part of the past decade, no one knew exactly why these dogs had been buried here en masse. A recent study...
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The Chilling History Of Shadow People, From Ancient Arabic Legend To Modern Scientific Explanations

Most people have, at some point, seen something vaguely person-shaped lurking in the dark. Perhaps it’s just a shirt hung on the back of a door or a stuffed animal propped up in the corner. Most of the time, that’s all it amounts to: a harmless, inanimate object — but not always.

Those who have experienced sleep paralysis, for instance, might see something more sinister. In some cases, it is a strange creature sitting on their chest, holding them down. Other times, it’s the Hat Man, a featurele...
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Inside The Tragic Death Of Mac Miller And The Long Battle With Addiction That Preceded It

“I want to be, like, Beatles big, when it’s all said and done. I want to change what’s on the radio.”

It was a lofty goal for anyone, let alone a kid who grew up in Point Breeze, a small neighborhood on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But for Malcolm James McCormick, better known as Mac Miller, it was a goal well within his reach. He was a self-taught musician, able to play piano, guitar, drums, and bass by the age of six. By 15, he had put out his first mixtape.

Mac Miller drew ins...
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99-Million-Year-Old Parasitic Wasp With A ‘Venus Flytrap’ Abdomen Found Preserved In Amber

Researchers from China and Denmark recently discovered a terrifying — and thankfully extinct — species of parasitic wasp that used a Venus flytrap-like abdomen to trap its prey before laying eggs in its victims.

Experts named this prehistoric wasp Sirenobethylus charybdis after the Greek mythological sea monster Charybdis, as detailed in a study published in BMC Biology. The study was the result of analyzing over a dozen wasps preserved in 99-million-year-old amber found in Myanmar’s Kachin reg...
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Jack Stuef, The Amateur Sleuth Who Found Forrest Fenn's $2 Million Hidden Treasure

For about a decade, treasure hunters everywhere searched feverishly for buried treasure in the Rocky Mountains. It had been hidden by Forrest Fenn, an art collector who had been inspired to start the treasure hunt by his brush with cancer. In June 2020, Fenn announced that the treasure had been found. And that December, the finder revealed himself, writing: “My name is Jack Stuef and I am the finder of the Forrest Fenn Treasure.”

Naturally, treasure hunters who had spent years looking for the F...
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Mark Antony, The Once-Powerful Roman Politician Who Became Cleopatra's Lover — And Was Defeated By Octavian

History is rife with tragic love stories, but few have the lasting impact of the story of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. While their relationship carried political weight, it was also romantic — and much like Romeo and Juliet, their love story ended with the two lovers taking their own lives.

But beyond his romance with Cleopatra, Mark Antony was also one of ancient Rome’s most influential figures. Following the assassination of Julius Caesar, Antony established himself as one of the most pivotal l...
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Archaeologists In Belgium Just Unearthed The Shockingly Well-Preserved Remains Of An Ancient Roman Dog

Beneath a stone foundation in Velzeke, Belgium, researchers recently made an astounding discovery: the well-preserved remains of an ancient Roman dog.

This find was one of more than 700 relics dating back to somewhere between the first and third centuries C.E. that were unearthed in a roughly 3,200-square-feet area. Other discoveries included pieces of pottery, coins, and the remnants of a Roman road. Foremost among the finds, however, is the dog, which may now offer unique insight into the liv...
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Sisyphus, The Mythical King Doomed To Endlessly Roll A Stone Up A Hill — Only For It To Roll Back Down

Sisyphus appears in several Greek myths, though today he is often associated with just one. In the famous legend, he is punished by Zeus for cheating death and condemned to endlessly push a boulder up a hill, only for it to inevitably roll back down. The myth was given new life in 1942 by the philosopher Albert Camus in his work The Myth of Sisyphus, which draws comparison between the absurdity of life and Sisyphus’ punishment.

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s h...
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A 700-Year-Old Statue Of Vishnu Just Mysteriously Washed Ashore On An Indian Beach

On March 21, something mysterious washed ashore on Pedda Rushikonda beach in Visakhapatnam, India: a centuries-old granite sculpture of the Hindu deity Vishnu. Standing just over three feet tall, the idol was found by a local woman out on her evening stroll.

The woman, Dipali Naidu, immediately alerted authorities to the discovery, prompting the Andhra Pradesh State Department of Archaeology and Museums to collect the statue for further examination. The statue was transported to the Visakha Mus...
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A Rare Viking Armband Made Of Iron 1,000 Years Ago Was Just Found Preserved In A Swedish Wetland

On the Swedish island of Öland, a passerby recently noticed something peeking out of a wetland. As they approached, they thought it was nothing more than a rusty brown loop, but it instead turned out to be an extremely rare Viking artifact: an iron armband dating back roughly 1,000 years.

Around the same time, in an unrelated incident on the other side of the country, workers in Trollhättan discovered a 2,000-year-old golden neck ring, another rarity given that such jewelry was typically only w...
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Archaeologists In Egypt Have Uncovered Shackles Used To Chain Victims Of Forced Labor In An Ancient Gold Mine

Two sets of iron shackles were found at the site of an ancient gold mine in Egypt, highlighting the human cost of gold mining in the Ptolemaic era. The shackles were discovered at Ghozza, the northernmost Ptolemaic gold mine, which operated during the 3rd century B.C.E.

Though researchers already knew that enslaved laborers were a driving force behind Egypt’s gold industry, this discovery from January 2023 confirms that some of the ancient workers at Ghozza specifically were victims of forced l...
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Robber Barons, Tenements, And Child Labor: 44 Colorized Photos That Reveal The Harsh Reality Of The Gilded Age

Despite the name, America’s Gilded Age was not as glamorous as it may seem — at least, not for most people.

This period, which lasted from the 1870s to the late 1890s, was a time of rapid industrialization, economic growth, and stark social contrasts. The wealthy, particularly those who owned industries, certainly became wealthier. However, those in the lower classes lived in abject poverty. They were worked to the bone as the concept of “social Darwinism” took hold — but without the wages to j...
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Scientists Just Discovered That Most Europeans Had Dark Skin As Recently As 3,000 Years Ago

Light skin is a relatively recent feature of Europeans, according to a groundbreaking new study. While prior research has shown that many prehistoric humans across the continent had darker skin tones, the results of this new study suggest that dark skin may have lasted until much more recently that previously believed — with fair skin only emerging prominently around 3,000 years ago.

The scientific consensus has long been that the first humans emerged in Africa and then gradually dispersed from...
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A New Jersey Paleontologist’s Priceless Fossil Collection Was Dumped In A Landfill By UPS Because His University Wasn’t Paying Their Bills

New Jersey’s William Paterson University is being sued by one of its professors for neglecting to pay their UPS bills — which eventually resulted in the professor’s rare collection of prehistoric fossils being dumped in a landfill.

The collection belonged to paleontologist and professor of environmental science Martin Becker, who spent decades of his career collecting Devonian Age marine invertebrate fossils from the High Mountain area of Wayne, New Jersey. Last June, Becker packaged 200 of the...
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Texas Man Arrested For Murdering His Fiancé After Googling ‘Can I Kill An Illegal Human?’

A Texas man now faces charges for murdering his fiancé after investigators discovered that he’d Googled “Can I kill an illegal human?”

Ty Dalton Vaughn, 31, of Baytown reportedly made the Google search shortly before shooting his partner Luis Banos, 27, inside their apartment on January 14.

Although Vaughn claimed that he returned to the apartment drunk at around 5:30 a.m. to find Banos dead, court documents obtained by ABC13 allege that Vaughn had been searching online to determine “whether o...
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Construction Workers In Sardinia Just Stumbled Upon A 2,400-Year-Old Punic Necropolis While Installing Gas Lines

While installing a new gas line in Sestu, Sardinia, construction workers unearthed an amphora — a tall jar with two handles and a narrow neck — and immediately reported the discovery to the archaeologist supervising the site.

A team of researchers promptly flocked to the area, and further excavations revealed five more amphorae. At least some of them contained human remains likely belonging to children. The discovery dates back to the third or fourth century B.C.E., the region’s Phoenician-Puni...
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Bloody Raids And Grisly Torture: Inside The True Story Of Björn Ironside That 'Vikings' Didn't Tell

The Vikings certainly weren’t lacking for esteemed warriors, but few reached the renown of Bjorn Ironside. Like his father Ragnar Lothbrok, Bjorn appears frequently in old Viking legends and Frankish sources — but that also makes it difficult to parse the truth about him from the mythology.

Still, the similarities from both accounts can provide a fairly well rounded description of Bjorn Ironside. He is most often described as a powerful and fearsome warrior with sides, as his name would suggest...
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11 Of The Coldest Places On Earth, From Antarctic Research Stations To Remote Towns In Alaska

Our planet is a vast and varied landscape of natural beauty. From tropical rainforests to arid desert regions, mankind has learned to adapt to the environment, make use of the land, and thrive. Yet, in some of the coldest places on Earth, the environment is too harsh for even humans to withstand.

Near the North and South Poles, temperatures dramatically plummet far below freezing. That’s part of the reason why there are no official permanent human settlements in Antarctica.

However, not all of...
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The Tragic Story Of Jett Travolta, The Son Of John Travolta Who Died When He Was Just 16

In January 2009, 16-year-old Jett Travolta — the son of actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston — was found unconscious in his hotel bathroom at the Old Bahama Bay resort on Grand Bahama Island. He had been on vacation with his family when he suddenly suffered a seizure and hit his head on the bathtub, an injury that proved to be fatal.

Jett Travolta’s cause of death seemed straightforward. He had a long history of seizures, and his family had even taken precautions to closely monitor him during...
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Anne Marie Hochhalter, The Paralyzed Columbine Victim Who Eventually Died 26 Years After The Shooting

Almost 26 years after the Columbine massacre, a new victim has been added to the death toll, bringing the total to 14.

On Feb. 16, 2025, 43-year-old Anne Marie Hochhalter died of sepsis, a condition that occurs when the body’s immune system overreacts to an infection. However, Hochhalter was also a student at Columbine when the infamous shooting happened — and the massacre left her partly paralyzed.

Complications of her paraplegia were a “significant contributing factor” in her death, accordin...
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A Book About The Scandalous Lives Of Roman Emperors Just Hit The Bestseller List 2,000 Years After It Was Written

The Lives of the Caesars, a gossip-filled account of the lives of Roman emperors, has officially become a bestseller 2,000 years after it was originally written thanks to a new translation by Tom Holland, the co-host of the podcast The Rest Is History.

Originally penned by the scholar Suetonius, the book chronicles the drama-riddled lives of the first Roman emperors. There are 12 biographies in total, which cover the reigns of Julius Caesar and the 11 emperors who succeeded him. Holland describ...
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