History

Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli painted Simonetta Vespucci as Venus rising from the waves. Now scientists think they’ve solved how she died

During a lost ‘golden age’ of language, humans may have spoken tens of thousands of different tongues, a new study suggests

Actor Tom Hiddleston reflects on the first time he visited Pompeii as a teenager and explains why the ancient city’s preserved tragedy continues to shape his understanding of history and humanity

Anthropeum is a daily game that uses the Met’s open-access data to showcase underrepresented art and artifacts

These ruins, located just five kilometers from Stonehenge, likely laid the groundwork for religious rites celebrating the longest and shortest days of the year

Natural fission reactor uncovered; geometry of soap bubbles

SpaceX’s IPO—the largest in history—has out-of-this-world implications for AI, space commerce and extraterrestrial exploration

Hints of high-pressure chemistry within a rare meteorite suggest this fallen space rock comes from a planet gone wrong in the solar system’s early history

Could a predecessor to the phonograph have appeared a century earlier?

Andrew Scott plays World War II meteorologist James Stagg in a new film Pressure, which explores the crucial role weather forecasting played in D-Day

As General Dwight D. Eisenhower prepared for D-Day, he needed a forecast. The new movie Pressure shows the tense make-or-break weather prediction that led to the successful invasion of Europe that spelled the beginning of the end of World War II

Constructed by ancient Egyptians, the Great Pyramid has survived multiple earthquakes through the ages—now researchers think they know why