World History

Cleopatra’s Needle

A Nova Crew Strains, and Chants, to Solve the Obelisk Mystery

The public television team put theories to the test to uncover the secrets of how the ancient Egyptians moved and raised the giant blocks

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Sir Francis Drake is Still Capable of Kicking Up a Fuss

Westward the corsair of England's empire made his way, plundering Spain for Queen and country; now modern moralists are nibbling at his fame

George Sand

A Woman Writ Large in Our History and Hearts

The free-spirited author George Sand scandalized 19th-century Paris when she defied convention and pioneered an independent path for women

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Close Encounters With An Ancient World

Defendants in the dock at the Nuremberg trials

Fifty Years Ago, the Trial of Nazi War Criminals Ended: The World Had Witnessed the Rule of Law Invoked to Punish Unspeakable Atrocities

In the war-shattered city of Nuremberg, in November 1945, an Allied tribunal convened to seek justice in the face of the Third Reich's monstrous war crimes

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Where You Went if You Really Had to Get Unhitched

In the days when divorce was still a sin and a shame, the city of Reno grew rich and infamous, catering to domestic disharmony

Jas de Bouffan, 1876

Cézanne's Endless Quest to Parallel Nature's Harmony

After all the analysis of his apples, his bathers, that mountain, his paintings still electrify at a major show in Philadelphia

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The Way We Were—and the Way We Went—in 1846

What with the Mexican War, and a million square miles of new real estate, our westward destiny became highly manifest

A Freedom Summer Activist Becomes a Math Revolutionary

In the Algebra Project Robert Moses uses subway rides, gumdrops and everyday experiences to help kids cope with exponents and negative numbers

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It's Not Polite To Ask Questions, But Who Says You Can't Think Them?

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How the Great War on War Surplus Got Won or Lost

Getting rid of $34 billion worth of old ships, planes and guns, not to mention seven million tubes of toothpaste, was no picnic

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Pliny's World: All the Facts and Then Some

In A.D. 77 a workaholic called Pliny the Elder published the first encyclopedia, Natural History. Headless people were among the many marvels

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It Comes Out Only Once a Week, But the Sun Never Sets

Can a weekly paper in rural New Mexico raise enough hell to keep its readers hungry for more, issue after issue? Don't ask

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'America Beats By Far Anything,' Said the Ex-POW

In WWII, thousands of captive Germans found our prison camps so hospitable that they later became U.S. citizens

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Gifts of Remembrance at the Wall

Near the base of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, comrades and loved ones leave their poignant tokens of remembrance

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The Floods That Carved the West

In a geological catastrophe, a lake exploded through an Ice Age dam, and its waters swept across the Pacific Northwest; signs of its passage visible

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If You Can't Bear to Part With It, Open a New Museum

Because the chances are, if you love your Mario Lanza albums or your old skate key, there are others who feel the same way

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One Man's Private Cache Pays Off For The Rest of Us

From the muddy yard of a private collector to the dresser drawers of a dealer, Mitchell Wolfson ransacks the world for his finds

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Mrs. Malaprop's Mangled Prose Set a President

Grande dame of an 18th-century comedy, she has been an aspiration to all who read boners, gaffes and mutilations perpetrated upon the English language

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Smithsonian Perspectives

The modern museum trend toward interpretive exhibitions presents both challenges and opportunities

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