As a new documentary on the US funnyman’s rise and fall airs, we speak to two of his accusers to examine how that public persona may yet lead to his ruin

The strangest part about the continued personality cult of Robert E. Lee is how few of the qualities his admirers profess to see in him he actually possessed. Memorial Day has the tendency to conjure up old arguments about the Civil War. That’s understandable; it was created to mourn the dead of a war in which the Union was nearly destroyed, when half the country rose up in rebellion in defense of slavery. This year, the removal of Lee’s statue in New Orleans has inspired a new round of commentary about Lee, not to mention protests on his behalf by white supremacists.

The word processor doesn't just deserve scolding. Here's an honest look at some budding word-processor innovation efforts. They're worth writing home about.

The 50 year cover-up of a mass murder of U.S. servicemen orchestrated by Israel and its friends. By Philip Giraldi.

In the sixties, the U.S. government ran a secret project to look for gold in the oddest places: seawater, meteorites, plants, even deer antlers.

On Juneteenth, the day that commemorates the ending of slavery in the US, a historian dispels myths about the 'peculiar institution' of slavery.

When the Ottomans laid siege to Rhodes, this smart inventor held them off for months.

Grandma was just making a sweater. Or was she?

The Smithsonian is supposed to be the people’s museum, but it tells corporate America’s version of history. By Colette Shade

Animated timeline about the 45 American Presidents

The biggest employment change of the last century is the number of careers that shifted from physically exhausting to mentally exhausting. From doing stuff with your arms to doing stuff with your head. Since the constraints of physically exhausting jobs are visible, we took decisive action when things weren’t working, like the Adamson Act. But the limits of mentally exhausting jobs are nuanced and less visible, so we get trapped in a spot where most of us work a schedule that doesn’t maximize our productivity, yet we do nothing about it.

45,000 years ago in Ethiopia, humans built a paint workshop and used it for millennia.

You basically had to sell a castle to the enemy. By Sarah Laskow.

John Bevis explores the various feats of cunning and subterfuge undertaken by the Kearton brothers — among the very first professional wildlife photographers — in their pioneering attempts to get ever closer to their subjects.

Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from mummies that are thousands of years old, and they have found that the ancient Egyptians are actually more genetically similar to people living today...

Over 80,000 carved wood blocks make up one of the world's oldest intact Buddhist canons

The Trial of the Sixteen (Polish: Proces szesnastu) was a staged trial of 16 leaders of the Polish Underground State held by the Soviet authorities in Moscow in 1945. All captives were kidnapped by the NKVD secret service under a false pretext, tortured, and accused of various forms of 'illegal activity' against the Red Army.[1]

A gene study has shown that incomers could have ousted Stone Age Britons

Tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water –– and from sugary Turkish Rize tea to salty Tibetan butter tea, there are almost as many ways of preparing the beverage as there are cultures on the globe. Where did this beverage originate, and how did it become so popular? Shunan Teng details tea’s long history.

This is what a melting pot looks like.

Eddie Maher went on the run after driving off with £1.2m in a Securicor van. Remarkably, he kept it up for 19 years taking a wife and children from one US city to another.

I don't care what that other snap said.

In the 1980s, Californian politician John Vasconcellos set up a task force that promoted high self-esteem as the answer to social ills. But was his science based on a lie?

If racism stemmed from evolution, we should not see Christians base racist ideas on the Bible long before the birth of evolutionary science. “Evolution is also the basis of racism, [and] many assert that racism played a role in the motivation for this murder,” Whitney said. “You see, evolution is essentially racist. So where did Sean Urbanski learn racism? He learned it in his classes on evolution at the local public high school that his parents sent him to and his parents funded that school by the payment of their property taxes.”

While dining at a Philadelphia tearoom owned by her friend John Wanamaker, Anna Jarvis ordered a salad — then dumped it on the floor.

Art historian’s book sheds new light on the Mona Lisa

In 18th-century Europe, the practice was considered a menace to life and property, but mostly to morals.

From its Civil War origins to its modern-day traditions, find out more about America’s most solemn holiday.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently announced world records for the highest death tolls from lightning, tropical cyclones, tornadoes and hailstorms in recorded history.

In November of 1632, the townspeople of Lützen, Germany, were stuck with a grim task: They had to bury some 9,000 soldiers who were left dead on a battlefield after a bloody fight during the Thirty Years' War. Archaeologists recently undid some of that work. A few years ago, researchers uncovered a mass grave at the site of the Battle of Lützen.By analyzing the bones, they have now learned more about the violent lives and deaths of soldiers from this era. [See Images of the War Grave and Battle Injuries]

Its name? The Radio Hat.

Mask of the Sun: The Science, History and Forgotten Lore of Eclipses