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Unique to humans, happiness is one of the hardest emotions to define or understand. What do we really know about the science of happiness? Image Source: Pixabay Unlike other species, humans are equipped with the ability to consciously experience, and anticipate, a weird but pleasant sensation called happiness. But how do we make scientific sense of this phenomenon? From chemistry to psychology, here’s how scientists have attempted to explain the singular human emotion....

The day after the Tiananmen Square massacre, a lone protestor starred down a column of Chinese tanks in Beijing. His identity remains unknown, but the world knows him as the “Tank Man.” On June 5, 1989, one day after the Tiananmen Square massacre destroyed the spirits of many of the protesters who had gathered there, an unidentified man in Beijing stood defiantly in front of a row of military tanks sent by the Chinese government....

Before linking with neo-Nazism, skinhead culture started out as an alliance between young English and Jamaican working-class communities in 1960s London. John Downing/Getty ImagesA police officer detains a skinhead in Southend-on-Sea, Essex. April 7, 1980. They just weren’t having it anymore. Sick of the hippie movement’s empty promises and the austerity that pervaded the British government, skinheads emerged in 1960s London and rallied around one thing: to wear their working-class status as a point of pride....

If John Pemberton was never in the American Civil War, he would never have become addicted to morphine and we wouldn’t have Coca-Cola. Wikimedia CommonsJohn Stith Pemberton, the man who invented Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is so ubiquitous and world-famous that its easy to forget its captivating origin story — or even, that it has one worth a look in the first place. Everyone has heard the rumors it once contained cocaine, but only a sliver of the population knows anything about its inventor John Stith Pemberton....

Even after his death, the government took great care to hide the identity of the Man in the Iron Mask. His clothes were promptly burned at dawn and his cell was immediately scraped and whitewashed. Wikimedia CommonsAn illustration of the Man in the Iron Mask in his cell. During the reign of King Louis XIV, a mysterious man was locked away in the notorious Bastille and other French prisons: the Man in the Iron Mask....

After World War II, commercial air travel exploded as a luxurious and exciting new way to fly – but it wasn’t cheap. Stewardesses and pilots pose for a photo before boarding. In the years after World War II, the United States was flying high, and the so-called Golden Age of air travel is a testament to that. Airline technology became more streamlined, and airliners pampered customers to the point where it did actually seem as if they were king....

In 1325, the Italian city-states of Bologna and Modena engaged in a short-lived war that allegedly started when Modenese soldiers stole a wooden bucket. During the Medieval period, what we know today as Italy was not a unified country, and it wouldn’t be fully unified until 1871. Italy was once fragmented into various city-states, duchies, and kingdoms that were all governed independently and had their own traditions, languages, cultures, and politics....

James “Whitey” Bulger, one of America’s most dangerous mob leaders, lived a double life as an FBI collaborator. But who was working for who? If you ask James “Whitey” Bulger, he’ll tell you everything we’ve heard about him is wrong. As far as he’s concerned, popular movies inspired by his life — like Black Mass and The Departed — are completely inaccurate. For one thing, the man best known for leading a double life as a Boston mob leader and an FBI informant insists he never snitched....

Researchers believe the tool was crafted by Homo erectus, making this only the second time they have found a non-stone tool made by this human ancestor. Berhane AsfawArchaeologists discovered a prehistoric hand ax made out of the femur of a hippopotamus, an unusual non-stone material found only once before. Archaeologists say stone-made hand axes are a pretty common find. But researchers were stunned when they found that a prehistoric hand ax unearthed in Ethiopia had been carved out of the thigh bone of a hippopotamus....

Yiwu, China is the closest thing to a real Christmas village as you can get. With 600 factories, they produce about 60 percent of our Christmas decorations. Source: Daily Mail “China’s Christmas Village” is located in Yiwu, a city in the Zhejiang Province. Though there are no elves, snow or reindeer in sight, Yiwu produces around 60% of the world’s Christmas decorations. The UN referred to the real Christmas village as the “largest small commodity wholesale market in the world,” and it’s easy to see why....

Source: Delta Broadcasting The United States of America isn’t like any other country, and not just because our national anthem is phrased in the form of a question. Unlike China, which has a recorded history going back almost to Homo erectus, America was founded pretty much from scratch (after the Indians were chased away) and July 4, 1776 represented a unique opportunity to start fresh. We flubbed it. Don’t get us wrong – there’s a lot to like about America....

Animals suspected of wrongdoing were entitled to lawyers and fair and speedy trials, not to mention human-like executions such as hanging if they were found guilty. Wikimedia CommonsA sow and pigs on trial. Rat infestations can be a pesky and all-too-common problem. However, the upside of the frequency with which humans have to deal with rats is that by now, everyone’s learned the only surefire way to get rid of them: Send them a polite, but stern, letter of warning....

From Cinderella to the Little Mermaid, the origins behind your favorite secretly dark Disney movies are more shocking and violent than you could imagine. Wikimedia CommonsSnow White and The Seven Dwarfs Disney is an industry built on magic and happily ever after. For kids around the world, Disney movies are what dreams are made of. The stories have been inspiring and exciting children since the first animated Disney film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, came out in 1937....

The school will replace the annual Halloween parade with a “black and orange spirit day.” A Massachusetts elementary school has canceled their Halloween costume parade, in the interest of “ensuring all student’s individual differences are respected.” In the past, the school has held a Halloween costume parade that allows students to wear their costumes and walk through the school for their parents. This year, however, the parade will be canceled in lieu of a “Black and Orange Spirit Day....

Nucky Johnson ran Atlantic City in the early 20th century, bringing it from an average tourist town to the site of America’s illicit indulgence. FlickrNucky Johnson Atlantic City rose to popularity by being “The World’s Playground” in the early 20th century. During the Prohibition era, prostitution, gambling, alcohol, and any and all other vices could be readily found in the New Jersey coastal town — provided guests had the money to pay for them....

The Hollyhock House was Frank Lloyd Wright’s first Los Angeles design. It was also a failure. But thanks to a grant, it’s finally been restored. The Hollyhock House was commissioned by oil heiress Aline Barnsdall as part of a performing arts complex in the early 1920s, and had the distinction of being the first house that Frank Lloyd Wright designed in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Wright was also working on Japan’s Imperial Hotel at the time, and thus was absent for much of the original construction work....

Thanks to embalming practices, coffin births rarely occur these days. However, between the 1600s and 1800s, it wasn’t uncommon for a deceased woman to give birth. YouTubeA child’s skeleton inside another skelton. In 1551, the Spanish Inquisition was in full swing. Mandated by the Spanish crown, those deemed heretical to Catholic orthodoxy (Jews, Muslims, and a plethora of other peoples) were subject to forced conversion, torture, and even death. According to Transactions of the Obstetrical Society of London, one such victim was hanged to death under the hot Spanish sun, her body left twisting in the winds blowing in from North Africa....

These heartbreaking photos from the days before labor unions and labor laws reveal just how hard our forefathers had it. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: How Frances Perkins, The First Woman Cabinet Member In U.S. History, Invented Modern Working Conditions 29 Historical Photos Of The Immigrant Laborers Who Helped Build America 25 Heartbreaking Photos Of 9/11 Artifacts — And The Powerful Stories They Tell...

Tammie Hedges was arrested on 12 counts of practicing medicine without a veterinary license, among other violations. Chip Somodevilla/Getty ImagesVolunteers from all over North Carolina help rescue residents and their pets from their flooded homes during Hurricane Florence. A North Carolina woman’s efforts to rescue displaced animals in the wake of Hurricane Florence apparently violated state law, which led to a seemingly ill-deserved arrest. Tammie Hedges of Wayne County, N.C. took it upon herself to save those animals who may have not otherwise survived the devastating hurricane....

Medieval villagers in England didn’t trust the dead not to come back to life and so they made sure that corpses wouldn’t have the chance. Medieval villagers in England mutilated the dead to make sure that the corpses didn’t rise up from the grave after burial, new research shows. English archaeologists have discovered that people who used to live in the Wharram Percy village in Yorkshire, England during the Middle Ages used to chop, smash, and burn the recently dead, according to the Guardian....