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The Viking Who Traveled Further East Than Any Explorer Before Columbus

When people think about Viking exploration, they think west. Leif Erikson reaching North America. The settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. The longships pushing across the North Atlantic into territory no European had reached before.

The Trojan War Was Real, Just Not the Way Homer Told It

Heinrich Schliemann wanted Troy so badly that he almost destroyed it. When he arrived at Hisarlik in 1871 with a crew of workmen and a head full of Homer, he dug with an enthusiasm that any modern archaeologist would call criminal.

Did NASA Fake the Moon Landing?

July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong steps onto the Moon. Roughly 600 million people watch it live, about one in five humans alive at the time.

The Ancient Board Game That Predates Chess by 2,000 Years

In 1926, Leonard Woolley was excavating the Royal Cemetery of Ur in what is now southern Iraq when his team uncovered something that had no obvious parallel in the ancient world.

The Viking Myth: How 19th Century Romantics Invented the Horned Helmet and Everything Else

No Viking warrior ever wore a horned helmet in battle. The image was invented by a Swedish illustrator in 1820 and popularized by a Wagner opera costume designer in 1876. The Viking identity most people carry fierce pagan warriors, racially pure northerners is almost entirely a 19th century nationalist construction. The most famous Viking ship burial ever found contains two…

What Are the Nazca Lines and Why Were They Made?

Etched into the desert of southern Peru, the Nazca Lines cover around 450 square kilometers and include hundreds of straight lines, geometric shapes, and large animal figures: a hummingbird, a spider, a condor, a monkey with a curled tail.