This week, the inventor of the world wide web reflects on what he could have done differently all those years ago, and what we should all be doing to make the internet a safer and better place. Then, Elle Hunt and Alex Hern join Jordan Erica Webber to talk about some of the wackiest stories they heard when compiling the memories of people who used the web in the early days.

Created around 1300, it is the largest surviving map from the Middle Ages and offers a glimpse into the mindset of the ancient Christian world.

How real is insectageddon?

Not surprisingly, the record of the first humans identified by a personal name goes back to before the dawn of history itself. Through his artistic "Love...

A wooden box containing one of the most valuable books in the world arrives in Los Angeles on October 14, 1950, with little more fanfare—or security—than a Sears catalog. Code-named “the commode,” it was flown from London via regular parcel post, and while it is being delivered locally by Tice and Lynch, a high-end customs broker and shipping company, its agents have no idea what they are carrying and take no special precautions.

For generations they have signified femininity and glamour - but a pair of high heels was once an essential accessory for men. Beautiful, provocative, sexy - high heels may be all these things and more, but even their most ardent fans wouldn't claim they were practical. They're no good for hiking or driving. They get stuck in things. Women in heels are advised to stay off the grass - and also ice, cobbled streets and posh floors.

From Captain Cook onwards, the western world has been puzzled by how the vast Pacific could have been navigated relying only on the stars

Modern people aren’t the first to cherish their animal companions. A monkey that died more than 4,000 years ago in the Middle East was laid to rest in a human cemetery in a type of grave used for infants, suggesting that it was a treasured pet.

Relying on clues from the past, a team of 19th-century archaeologists uncovered Delphi, the site where ancient Greeks asked questions, and Apollo answered them. By María Teresa Magadán.

Hanging in the Louvre Museum in Paris is an imposing painting, The Preaching of St Paul at Ephesus. In this 1649 work by Eustache Le Sueur, the fiery apostle lifts his right hand as if scolding the audience, while clutching a book of scripture in his left. Among the rapt or fearful listeners are people busily throwing books into a fire. Look carefully, and you see geometric images on some of the pages.

Is the Army botching its investigations into noncombatant deaths?

Some 12,000 years ago, the land was exceptionally fertile curving up from the Nile River basin across Jordan, Syria, and Iraq, down into the Tigris River Valley. The area’s earliest settlers grew wheat, barely and lentils. Some kept pigs and sheep. Farming soon replaced hunting and foraging as a way of life there. The region became known as the Fertile Crescent, the birthplace of agriculture.

Since the singing sweltering summer of 2006, just about 3,000 archeological antiques have showed up from the softening ice in Oppland, Northern Norway. Among them, an Iron Age tunic, a 1,500-year-old bolt and a 3,400-year-old shoe.

In 1942, a volley of torpedoes sent the U.S.S. Wasp to the bottom of the Pacific. For decades, the families of the dead wondered where in the lightless depths of the ocean the ship could possibly be. Earlier this year, a team of wreck hunters set out to find it.

Bonnie and Clyde’s story is retold from the point of view of their executioners, played by Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson.

I’ve always been somewhat fascinated by the sometimes odd choices for the historical figures that adorn the currencies we use every day…

Lilly Ryan

Abolitionists used a daguerreotype of Mary Mildred Williams, a light-skinned black girl born into slavery, to win over potentially sympathetic white Americans during the 19th century.

West African king Mansa Musa had more wealth than the Forbes' five richest billionaires combined.

The banal, evil, all-destructive reign of Mitch McConnell

From Double Rainbow Guy to the Ellen Selfie to the Dress, let’s take a pseudoscientific journey through the past nine years of internet history to determine the single best day to be online.

A mass sacrifice at a 15th century archaeological site in Peru saw the ritual killing of over 140 children and over 200 llamas, according to a new study in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Gabriel Prieto of the National University of Trujillo, Peru and colleagues. This is the largest known mass sacrifice of children – and of llamas – in the New World.

So its author published a “key” to what’s true in the novel

Physicists used to search for the smallest components of the universe. What if that’s not the point?

Its creation is a perfect illustration of how science progresses

The 1979 Sally Field–starring drama showed how solidarity between black and white workers was often targeted to undermine the power of labor unions.

Wanji-wanji's lyrics have remained unchanged over thousands of kilometres and the past 150 years.

Ultimately, Robert E. Lee fought for the preservation of slavery, James A. Gagliano says. For that, there can be no equivocation. And removing homages to slavery's defenders sets us on the right path.

One of the inventors of the handheld electronic calculator, described by those who knew him as not only brilliant but also kind with a good sense of humour, has died. He was 86.

According to the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. But in the case of Josephine Cobb and her 1952 discovery in a Civil War–era photograph, it’s worth exactly 272.

Louisiana's Whitney Plantation pays homage to the experiences of slaves across the South.

Dance me to the end of life.

Cheap and simple medical devices could improve performance and lower health-care costs, but first they have to overcome deeply rooted biases.

The video game of Steven Spielberg's ET is considered to be one of the worst of all time and has even been blamed for triggering the collapse of Atari. Howard Scott Warshaw, the gifted programmer who made it, explains how it was rushed out in a matter of weeks - and how he feels about those events in California now. Spielberg was unimpressed. "Couldn't you do something more like Pac-Man?" he asked.

The Japanese government will for the first time formally recognize the Ainu people of Hokkaido as an indigenous people of the country.