That’s a handy attitude to cultivate for the next time you want to sell a “humanitarian” war. By Jim Naureckas.

Alone in his stand, Weldon Heyburn despised that Robert E. Lee would be memorialized with a statue in the U.S. Capitol

The US knew people were being "delivered for slaughter" during a political purge in Indonesia during the 1960s, declassified documents reveal. At least 500,000 people were killed between 1965 and 1966, after the army and local Muslim militia went on a rampage following an attempted coup. It was one of the worst massacres of the 20th century, but, at the time, Washington remained silent.

The National Archives is set to release thousands of documents about John F. Kennedy’s assassination. It’s likely to fuel conspiracy theorists for years.

Are you frustrated with the lack of dresses and skirts with pockets? It turns out history is partly to blame.

When Christians turfed Muslims out of Spain, they gave rise to a badass Islamic queen. By Seth Ferranti.

The world’s first supersonic airliner was not the Anglo-French Concorde but a Soviet design intended to show the world the superiority of the USSR. Stephen Dowling reports.

It remains the biggest one-day stock market drop in history.

This is the mass grave for the victims of the 1890 genocidal massacre of the Lakota at Wounded Knee. I assume that everyone knows the story of Wounded Knee, but maybe they don’t, so I guess I will lay it out. The short version is that the United States has committed unspeakable genocide against indigenous …

The Affair of the Poisons was one to remember. By Natasha Frost.

New Swedish research on Viking funeral clothes raises questions about Islam's influence in Scandinavia.

A new study by scientists at the University of the Witwatersrand suggests that at about 58,000 years ago, Stone Age humans began to settle down, staying in one area for longer periods. The research also provides a potential answer to a long-held mystery: why older, Howiesons Poort complex technological tradition in South Africa, suddenly disappear at that time.

For centuries, oozing wounds were seen as proof of guilt in court—but even in death, women’s testimony was considered less credible than men’s.

Xi Jinping is tightening his grip on power. How did one man come to embody China's destiny?

New evidence suggests his second-in-command was to blame. By Kelsey Kennedy.

How New York City detectives laid a trap to catch the movie mogul after an Italian model accused him of groping her—and why charges were never brought.

How Leonardo da Vinci engineered the world’s most famous painting

People walked slightly different in Medieval times

Playboy challenged repressive sexual norms - it encouraged men to proposition women a little more. However, around 1970, when Playboy approached radical philosopher Herbert Marcuse for an interview, he gave them a proposition they weren’t expecting.

When FBI agents Jim Wedick and Jack Brennan began to track the '70s most notorious financial fraudster, Phil Kitzer, they had no idea how wrapped up in his world they’d become.

If you're fascinated with the middle ages, you don't need a time machine to visit the period. Guedelon Castle in Burgundy, France is a unique project where volunteers and researchers are constructing an authentic 13th century castle, using only techniques and materials that were available at the time.

The U.S. Army secretly dumped a carcinogen on unknowing Canadians in Winnipeg and Alberta during the Cold War in testing linked to weaponry involving radioactive components meant to attack the Soviet Union, according to classified documents revealed in a new book. Between July 9, 1953 and Aug 1, 1953, six kilograms of zinc cadmium sulfide was sprayed onto unsuspecting citizens of Winnipeg from U.S. Army planes. The Army returned 11 years later and repeated the experiments in Suffield, Alta. and Medicine Hat, Alta., according to Lisa Martino-Taylor.

What really happened in the trial featured in the new biopic of future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall

In an exclusive excerpt from his new book, Calder: The Conquest of Time, Jed Perl reveals a hidden side of the artist

There's a big chance your keyboard says QWERTY. In this episode of Vox's Overrated, Phil Edwards investigates the keyboard's history.

I registered the domain name ‘Slashdot.org’ 20 years ago today. I really had no idea.

Timothy Coggins died as a result of multiple forms of trauma, authorities said.

For a long while it wasn't clear whether the island's native population originated in Polynesia or South America.

It takes more than religious fanaticism or hatred to make someone take innocent lives, but recognise the true roots of ISIS-inspired terror and they can be addressed.

Before it was autumn and fall, it was harvest. While the modern names of winter and summer have been around for more than 1,000 years, the names of fall and spring are more recent—and less constant.

A remarkably preserved 49,000-year-old skeleton shows that Neanderthal kids may have grown slowly, like us

One hundred years ago, a retail giant that shipped millions of products by mail moved swiftly into the brick-and-mortar business, changing it forever. Is that happening again?

A leading postcard firm is closing, so let’s celebrate a lost art, says freelance journalist Andy Dawson