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Last remaining liberator of Auschwitz passes away, ancient Greek jar used for curses unearthed, and evidence of Stone Age dance parties uncovered. The Last Surviving Liberator Of Auschwitz Has Just Passed Away At Age 98 Getty ImagesDavid Dushman initiated the liberation of Auschwitz almost single-handedly when he plowed through the camp’s barbed wire and electrified fence with his tank, allowing scores of soldiers to then storm in. The Jewish World War II veteran who was the last remaining liberator of the Auschwitz concentration camp has just passed away at the age of 98....

The alt-right has come from nowhere to reshape Western politics. Who are these people, what do they want, and where do they want to take the U.S.? Jason Heuser/Etsy A specter has begun to haunt European and American politics: the alt-right. All the powers of old Europe and the American two-party system are working to exorcise this specter, but it has leaped off of the internet forums and discussion threads where it started with one goal: radically remaking politics in the West....

The history of the Google name can be traced back to a typo, an incredibly large number, and a nine-year-old boy. Google Inc./Wikimedia Commons. Google’s logo. Google is one of the biggest tech companies in history. Its impact on our daily lives is so huge that “to google something” has entered the language as a verb. If all the unique web pages in Google’s index were printed out, they would cover North America with a layer of paper five sheets thick....

A woman fell from a 730-foot bridge while taking a selfie this week as selfie-related injuries and deaths are skyrocketing around the world. Before you take a selfie, you should get the lighting right, check your hair, and then maybe look around to make sure you’re not in a life-threatening situation. This last suggestion was recently made by a Sherriff’s office in California after a woman fell from a 730-foot-tall bridge while snapping a picture of herself....

With great power comes great responsibility — and, it turns out, great cruelty, sadism, violence, delusion, and sexual deviancy. When it comes to holding a position of extraordinary power, it sometimes seems as though being insane is almost a job requirement. Few of us would thrive in a role of supreme leadership, and most would be incompetent at best. But, as history shows, incompetence is not actually the worst character trait that a leader can have....

In the early morning hours on November 13, 1974, Ronald DeFeo Jr. killed his entire family in cold blood — and claimed that demonic voices told him to do it. For decades, The Amityville Horror has captivated audiences. A scary movie about a haunted house that forced a family to flee after just a month, this film has inspired many people to seek out the real Long Island home behind the eerie tale....

In addition to impressive camouflage techniques, stick insects may have also evolved to be eaten on purpose. Kobe UniversityFor insects with very low mobility, such as stick insects, bird predators could help them to expand their habitats. Not only can stick bug eggs survive being eaten by birds, this it actually helps distribute their population across great distances. The information comes from a study published in the journal Ecology on May 29, 2018....

William Shakespeare is a household name nowadays - and this newly excavated theater helped launch his career as a preeminent playwright. Museum of London ArchaeologyArchaeologists digging in the area outside of The Theatre. A theater located in the outskirts of London which played a huge role in William Shakespeare’s early career is set to reopen to the public for the first time in 400 years. The remains were first discovered in 2008 and recent excavations at the playhouse in Shoreditch, simply called “The Theater,” revealed new details about its rich history through artifacts....

Some 3,600 years ago, the city of Tall el-Hammam in present-day Jordan was suddenly obliterated in a great blaze caused by a meteoric explosion known as a “cosmic airburst.” UC Santa BarbaraResearchers investigating the 3,600-year-old ruins of Tall el-Hammam, the city believed to have inspired the Bible’s tales of Sodom. In 1650 B.C., the citizens of Tall el-Hammam in present-day Jordan witnessed a meteor light up the skies like nothing they’d ever seen before....

A colorful, peg-legged statesman, Gouverneur Morris wrote the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and was also an early voice against slavery. Wikimedia CommonsGouverneur Morris signing the United States Constitution. Gouverneur Morris was one of the busiest American statesmen of his time. The native New Yorker not only signed the Articles of Confederation but wrote the Preamble to the United States Constitution. When he authored those hallowed words of “We the People,” Morris truly meant it — and personally despised slavery....

The real Gaëtan Dugas was not the monstrous “AIDS Patient Zero” the media portrayed him to be — and even helped the CDC fight the disease. Wikimedia CommonsFor decades, Gaëtan Dugas was wrongfully labeled as “AIDS Patient Zero,” the man who brought the disease to America. Since the beginning of the AIDS pandemic, 35.4 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses. And for a long time, one man, a Canadian flight attendant named Gaëtan Dugas, was considered as the person who brought the virus to America....

In 20th-century America, the brown paper bag test was used to deny some Black people access to positions of privilege if their skin tone was darker than a paper bag. Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty ImagesMembers of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority meet with singer Marian Anderson in 1953. The sorority reportedly used the brown paper bag test to admit members. The brown paper bag test was a form of discrimination used to exclude dark-skinned Black people by comparing their skin tone to the color of a brown paper bag....

After delivering the components of the Hiroshima bomb in 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine, leaving nearly 1,000 men adrift in the middle of the Philippine Sea. When the USS Indianapolis sank on July 30, 1945, it had just covertly delivered parts of the atomic bomb that would be dropped on Hiroshima. Indeed, the Navy cruiser had a prolific career in the Pacific theater of World War II — until Japanese torpedoes relegated it to the bottom of the ocean in 12 minutes flat....

Evocative of our own limits, these abandoned structures provide us an opportunity to consider our place–however temporary–in the world. A building is never just that. It can be a place we call home, a repository for memories, an intimate space where we share even more intimate ideas; it’s one of the ways we as people lay physical claim to the world in which we live. And just as a building is more than its material components, the same can be said for a building in shambles....

The Soviet Union even went so far as to include the Katyn Massacre among the list of Nazi war crimes presented at the Nuremberg trials. Wikimedia CommonsOfficials examine the exhumed remains of the Katyn massacre. 1943. In 1940, Poland was caught between the military aggression of both Germany and the Soviet Union. The conflict climaxed that spring in Russia’s Katyn Forest when the Soviets murdered 22,000 of the best and brightest Poles of their generation en masse — then tried to blame the whole thing on the Nazis....

Leroy “Nicky” Barnes sold so much heroin and evaded convictions for so long that he earned the nickname “Mr. Untouchable” and actually challenged the police to catch him. Ossie LeViness/NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagesAssistant District Attorney David Blatt (left) and detectives wait as Nicky Barnes, a.k.a. “Mr. Untouchable,” is booked at a Bronx police station. Nicky Barnes was once quite open about how he’d amassed his fortune. The notorious drug kingpin got rich by flooding Harlem and other black neighborhoods of the 1960s and ’70s with heroin, then smartly invested those profits in legal endeavors like real estate....

This picture of Boulevard du Temple, taken by inventor and artist Louis Daguerre, is the oldest known photo of a human being. Wikimedia CommonsA picture of Boulevard du Temple and the first photograph of human beings, taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838. At first glance, this picture seems like a typical shot of a fairly quiet street – lined with houses and no traffic to speak of. You might not even notice the small figures in the bottom left of the picture, looking almost like a shadow against the sidewalk....

The hammer-headed bat is the largest bat species found in Africa. But while it may look like a carnivore, it only eats fruit. Throughout Equatorial Africa, the Hypsignathus monstrosus — better known as the hammer-headed bat — dominates the night sky with its monstrous wingspan and its pestilently loud noises. As one of the largest bats in the world, one would think that it would be a threat to humankind, especially since it cuts such an imposing figure....

Gavel the German Shepherd was deemed too sociable for life on the force, so he’s now officially been made Vice-Regal Dog instead. The old axiom that “nice guys finish last” may often be true of humans, but probably doesn’t apply to dogs. This has perhaps never been more evident than in the case of Gavel, the German Shepherd and former police dog trainee who was fired for being too friendly for the job — only to receive an even better position instead....

This prehistoric quadruped discovered on the coast of Peru was similar to a modern-day otter or beaver — except 13 feet long. Alberto GennariThe Peregocetus pacificus was well-adapted to both land and sea environments. Scientists have discovered evidence of a 42 million-year-old whale species on the coast of Peru. While this find would be stunning enough in and of itself, this particular whale had one astoundingly distinct characteristic: four legs likely used to walk on land....