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Could blood group anomaly explain Tudor king's reproductive problems and tyrannical behavior?DALLAS (SMU) – Blood group incompatibility between Henry VIII and his wives could have driven the Tudor king's reproductive woes, and a genetic condition related to his suspected blood group could also explain Henry's dramatic mid-life transformation into a physically and mentally-impaired tyrant who executed two of his wives. Research conducted by bioarchaeologist Catrina Banks Whitley while she was a graduate student at SMU (Southern Methodist University) and anthropologist Kyra Kramer shows that the numerous miscarriages suffered by Henry's wives could be explained if the king's blood carried the...

The Vatican has opened its secret archives, the repository of centuries worth of documents pertaining to the Holy See, to let the world get a closer look at a document presaging England’s split from the Church of Rome. Dated July 13, 1530, and addressed to Pope Clement VII, the letter, right, asks for the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and includes the seals of dozens of peers of England who concurred with the request.

... Every half-millennium or so an event occurs in our history that changes the basis of society. The Romans come, the Romans go. The Normans come; and between their arrival in 1066 and the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 there is one seismic event after which society sets off (after a false start or two) on an entirely new course: the Reformation in England. When the Convocation of Canterbury of the Church in England agreed in March 1531 to accede to Henry's demands about church governance that included the clergy's recognition of him as head of the English...

Probably the most interesting story yet, concerned a Chicago broker named Christopher Janus who was determined to solve the case of the missing fossils. Janus offered a $5,000 reward for the recovery of the Peking Man in the mid-1970s. He received an unusual response from an unidentified woman who claimed she had the fossils and demanded that they meet on the top of the Empire State Building in New York City. Janus curiosity was aroused and he met the woman at the designated spot. The woman claimed that her deceased husband, a Marine during World War II, returned home after...

In the 1930s archaeologists working at the site of Zhoukoudian near Beijing recovered an incredible trove of partial skulls and other bones representing some 40 individuals that would eventually be assigned to the early human species Homo erectus. The bones, which recent estimates put at around 770,000 years old, constitute the largest collection of H. erectus fossils ever found. They were China's paleoanthropological pride and joy. And then they vanished. According to historical accounts, in 1941 the most important fossils in the collection were packed in large wooden footlockers or crates to be turned over to the U.S. military for...

Among the most exciting of the new acquisitions are the materials from the site of Jebel Sahaba, now in northern Sudan, which were donated to the Museum by Dr Fred Wendorf in 2002. Excavating here in 1965–66, as part of the UNESCO-funded campaign to salvage sites destined to be flooded by the construction of the Aswan High Dam, Dr Wendorf found a cemetery (site 117) containing at least 61 individuals dating back to about 13,000 years ago. This discovery was of great significance for two reasons. First, as a designated graveyard, evidently used over several generations, it is one of...

MILAN (AP) — Officials at the Pompeii archaeological site have announced a dramatic new discovery, the skeleton of a man crushed by an enormous stone while trying to flee the explosion of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Pompeii officials on Tuesday released a photograph showing the skeleton protruding from beneath a large block of stone that may have been a door jamb that had been "violently thrown by the volcanic cloud."

Bone with bullet hole found by Russians in 1946 came from an unknown woman, not the German leader Tests on skull fragment cast doubt on Adolf Hitler suicide In countless biographies of Adolf Hitler the story of his final hours is recounted in the traditional version: committing suicide with Eva Braun, he took a cyanide pill and then shot himself on 30 April 1945, as the Russians bombarded Berlin. Some historians expressed doubt that the Führer had shot himself, speculating that accounts of Hitler's death had been embellished to present his suicide in a suitably heroic light. But a fragment...

French researchers claim to have put an end to conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Adolf Hitler, after a study of his teeth proved he definitely died after taking cyanide and shooting himself in the head in Berlin in 1945. The researchers reached their conclusion after they were given rare access to fragments of Hitler’s teeth which have been held in Moscow since the end of World War II. "The teeth are authentic, there is no possible doubt. Our study proves that Hitler died in 1945," said professor Philippe Charlier. "We can stop all the conspiracy theories about Hitler. He...

Archaeologists have unearthed the final resting place of an ancient racehorse among the ruins of the ancient city of Pompeii in Italy. The horse was discovered in Pompeii’s northern outskirts, beyond the walls of the Roman city. The stable where the horse belonged to a villa in Pompeii’s suburb of Civita Giuliana. Experts discovered the horse’s remains when they were investigating tunnels used by tomb raiders, according to a Facebook post.

For the first time ever, archaeologists have been able to cast the complete figure of a horse that perished in the volcanic eruption at Pompeii. The "extraordinary" discovery was made outside the city walls, in Civita Giuliana to the north of Pompeii proper, the site's directors announced this week. Excavation in the area revealed what archaeologists identified as a stable, complete with the remains of a trough. Using the same technique that has allowed them to recreate the final poses of dozens of Pompeii's victims, whereby liquid plaster is injected into the cavities left behind when bodies encased in volcanic...

Mummy tar in ancient Egypt For millennia, ancient Egyptians used oil tar to preserve bodies. New geologic research shows that the tar came from several sources, shedding light on how trade routes of old compare to those of today. New research suggests that ancient Egyptians used oil tar from Gebel Zeit in Egypt, shown here, and from the Dead Sea to preserve mummies. Image courtesy of James Harrell. All tar sands — crude oils, asphalts and bitumen — contain source-specific compounds, known as biomarkers, which have unique chemical signatures that are closely related to the biological precursors of the oil....

A small leather case containing a fragment of bone claimed to be a relic of St Clement, a pope who was martyred almost 2,000 years ago, has been found in rubbish collected from central London. The waste disposal firm is now appealing for suggestions from the public for a more suitable final resting place for a saint than a bin. The box, originally sealed with red wax and tied with crimson cords, contained a scrap of bone under a glass dome, with a faded strip of paper labelling it “Oss. S Clementis” – bone of St Clement. St Clement is...

MORE than 70 Roman skeletons were discovered on the site of a former hotel in York. The grade two listed building, formerly the Newington Hotel in Mount Vale Drive, overlooks Knavesmire and has been stripped back by developers to create seven new family houses. During the renovation of the Georgian building, developers were surprised to find human remains, and the York Archaeological Trust were called in to assist with the recovery. Developer John Reeves said the development had retained most of its original Georgian features, but the scheme had also involved some "interesting" elements. He said: "The refurb has not...

Scientists recreate (less ugly) face of Dante By Malcolm Moore in Florence Last Updated: 2:26am GMT 12/01/2007 Dante Alighieri did not, after all, have bulging eyes or a pointed chin — but his enormous nose was true to life, according to scientists who have created a replica of the poet's face by measuring the remains of his skull. The 3D reconstruction, based on skull measurements, alongside Botticelli's portrait of Dante Alighieri The researchers at the University of Bologna have pieced together the "true face" of Florence's favourite son and discovered that it was very different from the portraits of him...

A 2,600-year-old corpse has been discovered in the moors of northern Germany. It's not the only one. Such finds are frequent, but have posed an increasingly large riddle: Why were so many of the bodies victims of violence and dismemberment? Its blade plunging into the earth, the peat-cutting machine crept slowly through the Grosses Uchter Moor (Great Uchte Moor) in the northern German state of Lower Saxony. A worker stacked the sections of turf sliced free by the guillotine-like blade. Suddenly he paused, something having caught his eye. "What's this? An old leather jacket?" It wasn't. In fact, what the...

Bog Mummy Mistaken for Murder Victim By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News June 27, 2005— The body of a teenage girl thought to be the victim of foul play has turned out to be one of Germany's oldest and best-preserved mummies, German archaeologists announced at a press conference last week.Bog Mummy's Hand Found in September 2000 in a peat bog in the town of Uchte, in Lower Saxony, the corpse was first examined by the police homicide unit. Though it had been fragmented by the peat machine, the body appeared to belong to a teenage girl. Investigators thought it could be...

Faces of Civil War sailors from sunken USS Monitor reconstructed in hopes of identifying them Faces of 2 USS Monitor crewmembers reconstructed Recovery: The turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor is lifted out of the ocean off the coast of Hatteras, N.C. on August 5, 2002 RICHMOND, Va. — When the turret of the Civil War ironclad Monitor was raised from the ocean bottom, two skeletons and the tattered remnants of their uniforms were discovered in the rusted hulk of the Union Civil War ironclad, mute and nameless witnesses to the cost of war. A rubber comb was...

Historian wants DNA test for academy's John Paul Jones By EARL KELLY, Staff Writer Who's buried in John Paul Jones' crypt at the Naval Academy? This isn't a trick question. Some say the grand state funeral at the Naval Academy on April 24, 1906, for the father of the United States Navy may have been held over the wrong body. According to Washington College history professor Adam Goodheart, who wrote about Jones in the April issue of Smithsonian magazine, Jones' body may have been dumped in a landfill, used to fertilize vegetables or simply lost forever. He said modern-day science...

DNA from a 10,000-year-old skeleton found in an English cave suggests the oldest-known Briton had dark skin and blue eyes, researchers said Wednesday. Scientists from Britain's Natural History Museum and University College London analyzed the genome of "Cheddar Man," who was found in Cheddar Gorge in southwest England in 1903. Scientists led by museum DNA expert Ian Barnes drilled into the skull to extract DNA from bone powder. They say analysis indicates he had blue eyes, dark curly hair and "dark to black" skin pigmentation. The researchers say the evidence suggests that Europeans' pale skin tones developed much later than...