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5 Ancient New Year’s Celebrations
Babylonian Akitu Getty Images Following the first new moon after the vernal equinox in late March, the Babylonians of ancient Mesopotamia would honor the rebirth of the natural world with a multi-day...
View Article7 Ancient Sports Stars
Theagenes of Thasos One of the towering figures of ancient sports, Theagenes was a Greek pugilist who supposedly won 1,300 bouts over the course of a 22-year career. His most significant achievements...
View ArticleSummer Solstice Traditions
Ancient Greeks According to certain iterations of the Greek calendar—they varied widely by region and era—the summer solstice was the first day of the year. Several festivals were held around this...
View Article7 Unusual Ancient Medical Techniques
Bloodletting For thousands of years, medical practitioners clung to the belief that sickness was merely the result of a little “bad blood.” Bloodletting probably began with the ancient Sumerians and...
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8 Surprising Facts about Alexander the Great
He was taught by Aristotle but had famous run-ins with other philosophers. Alexander and Diogenes (Credit: Getty Images) Alexander’s father, Philip II of Macedon, hired Aristotle, one of history’s...
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10 Famous Elephants From History
Although known for millennia by many of the peoples of Africa and Asia, elephants’ introduction to the classical West came around 331 B.C., when Alexander the Great encountered war elephants as his...
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6 Modern Capitals With Ancient Roots
Athens Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images The earliest evidence of human habitation on Athens’ famed Acropolis dates to between 7000 and 5000 B.C. By the mid-second-century B.C....
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7 Early Robots and Automatons
Da Vinci’s Knight Life-sized recreation of Da Vinci's robot. (Credit: William West/AFP/Getty Images) Leonardo Da Vinci wrote extensively about automatons, and his personal notebooks are littered with...
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7 Historical Treasures Discovered by Accident
Lascaux Cave Credit: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images In September 1940, four French teenagers were roaming the forests near Montignac when their dog began sniffing around a mysterious hole in the...
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6 Legendary Mercenary Armies From History
The Ten Thousand As chronicled in the historian Xenophon’s “Anabasis,” the “Ten Thousand” were a motley assortment of Greek warriors contracted by Cyrus the Younger to help oust his brother King...
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Top 6 Theories About Atlantis
Atlantis was a mid-Atlantic continent that suddenly sunk into the ocean. Engraving of Atlantis, as first described by Plato, just beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar and Mount Hacho). (Credit:...
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9 Things You May Not Know About the Ancient Sumerians
One of the larger Sumerian cities may have had 80,000 residents. A picture shows the archaeological site of Uruk (Warka). (Credit: ESSAM AL-SUDANI/AFP/Getty Images) The origins of Sumerian...
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7 Little-Known Wonders of the Ancient World
Göbekli Tepe Gobekli Tepe. (Credit: Ayhan Altun/Getty Images) Located in Turkey’s Anatolia region, the mysterious Göbekli Tepe consists of a series of rectangular rooms, stone circles and dozens of...
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6 Ancient Historians
Herodotus Bust of Herodotus. (Credit: Leemage/Corbis / Getty Images) Nicknamed the “father of history,” Herodotus is credited with essentially inventing the genre, the origins of which lie in epics...
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8 Astonishing Ancient Sites in the Americas
The Pyramid of the Sun Latin America’s answer to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of the Sun is located in the ancient city of Teotihuacan near Mexico City. Constructed around 200 A.D. by an...
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8 Legendary Ancient Libraries
The Library of Ashurbanipal Part of a clay tablet, Neo-Assyrian. (Credit: Public Domain) The world’s oldest known library was founded sometime in the 7th century B.C. for the “royal contemplation” of...
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8 Remarkable Early Maps
The Babylonian World Map Babylonian map of the world. (Credit: VCG Wilson/Corbis/Getty Images) History’s earliest known world map was scratched on clay tablets in the ancient city of Babylon sometime...
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8 Mysterious Underground Cities
Derinkuyu Derinkuyu Underground City is an ancient multilevel underground city in the Derinkuyu district in Nevsehir Province, Turkey. (Credit: ralucahphotography.ro/Getty Images) The volcanic rock...
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How 5 Ancient Cultures Explained Solar Eclipses
Solar eclipses have been fascinating—and often terrifying—humans throughout the course of history. For the first time in nearly 100 years, a solar eclipse’s path of totality, where the entire sun is...
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