92-year-old Wren tells us about life cracking German codes

Whether the problem was an arrowhead, a beating, or being visible, Middle English manuscripts from the fifteenth century offered solutions.

Smart Design’s Davin Stowell shares the origin story of the OXO Swivel, one of the great icons of 20th-century industrial design.

Ahmet Hergune was killed during the conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in 1974

The jokes include pot-shots at Soviet leaders both current and historic, and even one joke about Ronald Reagan that the president saw and found so funny that he began using it himself.

It had been hiding in plain sight. The original letter — long thought lost — in which Galileo Galilei first set down his arguments against the church’s doctrine that the Sun orbits the Earth has been discovered in a misdated library catalogue in London. Its unearthing and analysis expose critical new details about the saga that led to the astronomer’s condemnation for heresy in 1633.

Guardian photographer Christian Sinibaldi tours the world’s last Polaroid film factory, in the Netherlands, the only remaining factory still making film for the much-loved instant cameras

It was the height of luxury when it was built in 1971 near the Armenian capital Yerevan. Now stepping inside Zvartnots airport's abandoned terminal is like being transported back four decades.

President Trump has promised to revive coal's flagging fortunes. Is it possible?

Five-hundred-and-twenty-five years ago, confused Europeans “discovered” the “New World”. Heaps of broken brown bodies marked this great achievement as the Europeans congratulated one another. Brave explorers, selfless men of God, and devout Pilgrims soon began pillaging, raping, and slaughtering their way from sea to sea. They rename our homelands “North America.” Their descendants tell us that those men were seeking their fortunes, trying to save souls, hoping to find simple freedom for themselves. By Katherine Crocker.

John Kaag’s fascinating new book about the German thinker seeks to tether philosophy back to the mess of daily experience.

The Senate just passed a major copyright bill—here's what it does.

There are many studies about how we process tonal music and figurative painting, but philosophers are just beginning to understand how our brains react to more abstract work.

George McMahon aka Jerome Bannigan was a small time fraudster who attempted to assassinate King Edward VIII in the 1930s. In 1936, King Edward VIII had been inspecting the Trooping of the Colours ceremony in Hyde Park, along with his young nieces, Princess Margaret and the future Queen Elizabeth II. As the King rode back down the Mall on horseback after the ceremony, the would-be assassin forced his way to the front of the watching crowd, with a loaded revolver hidden behind a newspaper.

As attitudes have changed, circuses are facing extinction.

Twenty-one documents found in the U.K.'s National Archives add context to the Bard's feelings toward power and monarchy

Oval-shaped Dickinsonia lifeform existed at least 20m years before the ‘Cambrian explosion’ of animal life

Edinburgh’s landmark clock tower has been responsible for keeping commuters and travellers on time for more than a century – and yet it is never correct.

How a cheesy joke from the 1830s became the most widely spoken word in the world.

Scientists are hoping archaeology, carbon dating, and tree rings together can help solve the mystery.

Emmanuel Macron also recognises role of state in 1957 death of dissident Maurice Audin

Wendell Lindsey is serving life in a Texas prison, but his conviction relied on dubious drowning science and a key witness with secrets of her own.

British Library puts archive online, ranging from the coin-toss that won David Storey 1976’s award to Joanna Lumley’s disdain for The Bone People.

Despite centuries of efforts to make standardised French the language of all of France, Occitan, which is intrinsically tied to the local culture, could not be suppressed.

Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel stated this summer that “when the generation that survived the war is no longer here, we’ll find out whether we have learned from history”. As a Polish Jew born in 1925, who survived the Warsaw ghetto, lost my family in the Holocaust, served in a special operations unit of the Polish underground, the Home Army, and fought in the Warsaw uprising of 1944...

Starting in the 1940s, Indian immigrants built a hospitality industry that their children and grandchildren have turned into an empire.

Millenia ago, ancient farmers cleared land to plant wheat and maize, potatoes and squash. They flooded fields to grow rice. They began to raise livestock. And unknowingly, they may have been fundamentally altering the climate of the Earth.

Even Magic Kingdoms need urban planners.

For years, one book dictated how and what people could eat.

Where did all those angles come from?

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There is a lot more to besieging a walled fortress than simply running around with ladders.

Jonas Noreika has been honored as a martyr since his execution by the Soviet secret police in 1947. But he now stands accused by his own granddaughter of helping the Nazis kill Jews.

The versatile gas lies at the center of a complex, fragile global market.

Some presidential estates and other historical sites have struggled to reconcile founding-era exceptionalism with the true story of America’s original sin.