Five Historical Robots
Long before Czech playwright Karel Capek coined the term "robot" in his 1920 play "R.U.R.," mechanized creations -- automata -- were being created without electronics or computers. Many were simple, b...
26 Jun 201327min
The Cursed Mary Celeste
She's often referred to as a cursed ghost ship. The history of the Mary Celeste features one unfortunate incident after another. While this vessel is most famous for an incident involving a disappeari...
24 Jun 201323min
The Irish Potato Famine: An Unnatural Disaster, Pt. 2
In the mid-1800s, the poorest people in Ireland ate almost nothing but potatoes. Other crops were for selling. So when a blight cut a swath through the potato crop, the impact was severe, and politics...
19 Jun 201321min
The Irish Potato Famine: An Unnatural Disaster, Pt. 1
The history lesson kids often get on the Irish Potato Famine could be summed up as "a blight destroyed the potato crops, and a lot of people starved or moved away." Most kids ask, "Why didn't they eat...
17 Jun 201321min
Paul Poiret
French designer Paul Poiret's work, which was often avante-garde, changed the fashion world in significant ways. He got rid of corsets, introduced the concept of lifestyle branding, and used draping r...
11 Jun 201330min
Benjamin Banneker
Despite having almost no official schooling and being a man of color in Colonial America, Benjamin Banneker turned out to be such an accomplished scholar that schools and professorships are named afte...
10 Jun 201323min
Who was the real Robin Hood?
Robin Hood-style characters have been showing up in literature since the 14th century. Historians disagree about whether there was any truth to the legend, and we're wondering: Was Robin Hood real, an...
5 Jun 201322min
The Phoenician Alphabet
The Phoenicians were great ship-builders, sailors and textile experts. But they're most known for developing the alphabet that many modern alphabets are descended from. What drove a merchant culture t...
3 Jun 201320min
