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It was found within a Siberian cave and is estimated to be over 40,000 years old. Anatoly Derevyanko and Mikhail Shunkov, Vera SalnitskayaThe Denisovan bracelet made of chlorite. A fragmented green bracelet was recently confirmed to be the 40,000-year-old creation of an ancient hominid species. The accessory was found in 2008 in a cave alongside the bones of a woolly mammoth and the shockingly-preserved pinkie finger bone of a little girl who, scientists later determined, was not a human at all....

Presented as a means for assessing whether voters were educated enough to vote, literacy tests and other methods were designed for a single purpose: to stop Black Americans from voting. Getty ImagesAfrican Americans, led by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., line up in front of the Dallas County Courthouse in Selma, Alabama to register to vote. With the South’s defeat at the end of the American Civil War, African American men were given the right to vote for the first time in the nation’s history in 1870 and the addition of their voices changed the course of American history....

After being denied a research permit in the Grand Canyon, a creationist geologist is suing the government for religious discrimination. A Christian geologist is suing the United States Department of the Interior for allegedly using his religious beliefs to deny him a permit to collect rocks from the Grand Canyon. Andrew Snelling, an Australian, was hoping to collect samples from the famous site to support a young-Earth creationist theory that a global flood 4,300 years ago was responsible for the rock layers and fossils around the world — rather than millions of years of evolution....

Jose “Joe” Torres and Kayla Norton were sentenced for making terrorist threats, aggravated assault, and breaking Georgia’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act. Douglas County Districts Attorney’s OfficeMugshots of Jose “Joe” Torres and Kayla Norton, members of the “Respect the Flag” group who terrorized a Black child’s birthday party in Georgia. A judge has sentenced a Georgia couple to a combined 19 years in prison after they made terroristic threats against African-Americans, including at a child’s birthday party....

“Rapper’s Delight” changed the face of American music culture when it became the first hip hop song to breach the Billboard Top 40. On Jan. 5, 1980, the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight” became the first hip hop song to break into the Billboard Top 40. With that, hip hop’s run as a commercial phenomenon officially kicked off. The New Jersey trio’s tune took what was a New York-centric music sensation—particularly in the Bronx and Harlem—and brought it to the masses, who had otherwise been listening to Billboard favorites like the Eagles, ABBA and Stevie Wonder....

After John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln, Union soldier Thomas “Boston” Corbett was sent to Virginia with orders to capture Booth alive. He shot and killed him instead. Library of CongressThomas H. “Boston” Corbett, the soldier who shot John Wilkes Booth and became a hero to the Union. The American Civil War was an extraordinary time when ordinary people were thrust into the forefront of history, but one Civil War figure, the eccentric Thomas “Boston” Corbett, was anything but ordinary....

Before he was the Colonel, Harland Sanders sold insurance, tires, and gas before he stumbled into the fried chicken business and became a household name. Everything about him is familiar: the salt-white goatee, the gentleman farmer’s duds, and the slight drawl that all promise the crunch of chicken and finger-lickin’ gravy, made from, yes, 11 herbs and spices. He’s Harland David Sanders — better known as Colonel Sanders — and he has been serving up comfort food from Halifax to Hanoi for decades....

For the last 47 years, investigators have been struggling to identify the Lady of the Dunes, a handless corpse that was found nearly decapitated on a Massachusetts beach. Wikimedia Commons“The Lady of the Dunes” remained unidentified for 48 years after her murder. On a July morning in 1974, a girl playing with a neighborhood dog along the Race Point Dunes in Provincetown, Massachusetts stumbled upon a horrifying sight: The nude, disfigured body of a dead woman sprawled out amid the sand and brush....

Known as “Big Tuna” and “Joe Batters,” Tony Accardo ruled the Chicago Outfit for over 40 years — and he only spent one night in jail. Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesOnce Al Capone’s bodyguard, Tony Accardo eventually rose to the top of the Chicago Mafia. In Prohibition-era Chicago, there was no question that Al Capone ruled the city’s underworld. But in 1931, the fearsome mobster was put behind bars for tax evasion. Though he was eventually released, his health had so declined that he was unfit to lead the Chicago Outfit....

Queen Anne was the first to rule over a united Britain, but her reign was marred by 17 failed pregnancies and accusations of a lesbian love triangle between her and two women in her court. In conventional British history, Queen Anne of Great Britain is best remembered for unifying England and Scotland under the crown and bringing the War of Spanish Succession to a close. It’s also well documented how her reign was marred by a series of unfortunate, personal scandals....

From clinical werewolf delusions to the belief that you are literally dead, these rare mental disorders are as uncommon as they are tragic. Imagine looking down at your own legs and thinking that they simply shouldn’t be there. Imagine believing that so strongly that you’d actually amputate your own legs in order to set things “right.” Sufferers of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) experience that very feeling — and some of them even go through with the amputation....

Layers of sediment found inside the cave show remnants of burnt camphor leaves, likely used as a natural insect repellent. Wadley et alResearchers believe fragments found inside South African cave sediment are remnants of world’s oldest known bed. About 200,000 years ago, humans took refuge in a cave in what is today South Africa. They set up living quarters that included simple grass bedding — an amenity that researchers say is the oldest known record of humans using bedding in history....

From slow, to strange, to unbelievably embarrassing, these are some of the worst ways to die. All men must die, but some deaths are significantly better than others. Carbon monoxide poisoning sounds pretty pleasant and freezing to death is allegedly kind of peaceful. Even walking the plank could be a noble way to go, but this list isn’t about nice ways to die. From slow, to strange, to unbelievably embarrassing, here are some of the worst ways to die....

The U.S. government used Americans as unwilling test subjects in their human experiments and got away with it for decades. Wikimedia Commons Science is hard, and good science requires a lot of work to control variables and manage large amounts of data. Medical science, in particular, usually calls for elaborate precautions to be taken, not just to ensure the accuracy of the data, but to protect the test subjects. People have rights, after all, and it’s highly unethical to subject them to drug trials against their will or to poison them without consent to test a theory....

It took 700,000 men more than 36 years to complete the First Emperor’s mausoleum, a 22-square-mile complex guarded by a massive Terracotta Army. It might have been part of the rebel commander Xiang Yu’s plan from the beginning or it might have been a mere afterthought but either way, to loot the mausoleum of China’s First Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi, as the majestic city of Xianyang fell to ashes made good economic sense....

The Salton Sea was once a popular southern California tourist attraction, but over the years the lake has been abandoned as waters grow increasingly toxic. The California drought has diminished much of the state’s lakes, rivers, and streams, but the rise and demise of the Salton Sea occurred on a different timeline. Though the man-made lake was once one of California’s most popular water resorts, the sea is now dried up, abandoned, and nearly forgotten....

This Bob Ross biography reveals the remarkable story of the Air Force Master Sergeant who would go on to teach millions the joy of painting. In the early 1980s, Bob Ross quietly appeared on public television stations across the United States to give viewers an experience that was part art lesson, part entertainment, and part pro bono therapy session. Over the course of more than 400 26-minute episodes, Ross taught his painting technique to millions of viewers, most of whom weren’t especially interested in learning how to paint for themselves, but who were mesmerized by Ross’ hypnotic smoothness and trademark permed hair....

Founded in present-day North Carolina in 1585 by Sir Walter Raleigh, the Roanoke Colony and its inhabitants vanished just two years later — and their fate remains unknown to this day. The story of the Lost Roanoke Colony is one of history’s most famous mysteries for a reason. It has pirates, shipwrecks, skeletons, hoaxes, family drama, and an enduring question that has puzzled historians for 400 years… How did 117 people simply vanish?...

Kenneth Taylor, an American pilot who is portrayed in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor, allegedly called the movie “a piece of trash; over-sensationalized and completely distorted.” To turn a historical event into entertainment is hard enough, but then filmmakers must also consider how to relay the event’s significance accurately and responsibly. Filmmakers, then, have to ask themselves whether they ought to portray the weight of real-life events or simply try to tell a good story....

When her Nicoleño tribe left California’s Channel Islands for the mainland, Juana Maria stayed behind for 18 years. The classic 1960 novel Island of the Blue Dolphins still captures the imaginations of young readers as they follow the story of an Indigenous teenager trying to survive on a remote island by herself. However, despite the book’s enduring popularity, many readers don’t know that its captivating tale draws on the true story of Juana Maria, a native Nicoleño woman who spent 18 years living alone in the Channel Islands of 19th-century California....