Free Republic

In the 1990s, archeologists in Mexico City unearthed a 500-year-old skeleton near an ancient Aztec temple—a victim of human sacrifice. A grisly discovery, yes, but perhaps even more chilling was what the beheaded skeleton was holding: two small whistles, one in the shape of a skull. When a researcher blew into one of the tiny instruments, the horrifying sounds that emerged immediately captivated imaginations. One scholar described the noise as “a shriek of death.” The dreadful, high-pitched sound of the whistle is perhaps most comparable to a human scream. “There are different air streams generated within the structure of these...

A video tour of the ancient city of Herculaneum buried by the volcanic eruption of AD 79. It is remarkably well preserved despite some nasty looting when first discovered in the 18th century. Currently it is believed that only about a quarter of the city has been excavated. Most of the rest lies still buried. Complicating excavations is that a modern city has been built on top of the old.

A Turkish court has ruled to ban a book titled “Kurdistan Tarihi” (The History of Kurdistan), whose first edition was confiscated by the State Security Court (DGM) in 2001 and pulled off the shelves. “The History of Kurdistan,” a Soviet academic volume published in Turkish by Avesta Publishing, was initially banned by the Ayvalık Penal Court of Peace and subsequently banned in 2001 by the İstanbul DGM. The publishing house was also given a fine and sentence by the same court. However, thanks to legal challenges, the ban was overturned. Edited by M.S. Lazarev and Ş.X. Mıhoyan and translated from...

A 132-year-old rifle discovered on a remote rocky outcrop in the heart of the Grand Basin National Park in Nevada is still a mystery as researchers try to find more answers. The Winchester rifle, which was found unloaded in November, has been shipped to the Cody Firearms Museum in Wyoming where it is temporarily on display among 7,000 other guns. Museum workers said there are no records showing who owned the rifle and that its lifter was removed making it able to only fire a single shot at once, according to Fox News.

A 130-year-old rifle found in the Nevada desert last year is fully loaded with mystery—and some of the questions surrounding it might never be answered. The Winchester 1873 rifle was discovered in the Great Basin National Park leaning against a juniper tree in November. But the strange discovery has triggered more questions than answers.

It was a moment frozen in time – an 1873 Winchester repeating rifle propped up against the trunk of a juniper tree exactly where its owner had left it over a hundred years ago. Eva Jensen, an archaeologist out scouring the hillsides of Nevada’s arid Snake Mountains for Native American artefacts, let out an involuntary cry of surprise when she stumbled across the find, and then fell into silence. “I recognised it instantly, but it takes your brain a little while to catch up,” she told The Telegraph. “The reality of it, I let out an exclamation and the...

Today is the anniversary of the denouement of the nearly-forgotten "20th of July" plot in 1944, when a courageous, but incredibly quixotic, group of old-fashioned German patriots under the leadership of Army officer Count Claus von Stauffenberg sought to achieve a compromise end to World War II in Europe by assassinating Adolf Hitler in his headquarters at Rastenburg, East Prussia, preparatory to opening peace negotiations with the western allies (i.e., excluding Russia). The conspiracy involved a number of high-ranking officers, including Generals Ludwig Beck and Friedrich Obert, but collapsed when a bomb placed by Stauffenberg himself failed to kill Hitler,...

The History Channel’s fictional drama Six provides a darker, more nuanced look into the personal and professional lives of SEAL Team Six operators. Although the show clearly displays the SEALs expertly using weapons in the field, there seems to be one place the show won’t accept them: in the home. In the dangerous world the show paints for us, the fact that they don’t want homeowners armed is even scarier. After former SEAL Team leader Rip was murdered by a terrorist on American soil in the season 2 premiere, Jackie (Nadine Velazquez) fears that her their family could be targeted...

Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s ten-part, 18-hour documentary series, THE VIETNAM WAR, tells the epic story of one of the most consequential, divisive, and controversial events in American history as it has never before been told on film. Visceral and immersive, the series explores the human dimensions of the war through revelatory testimony of nearly 80 witnesses from all sides—Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as combatants and civilians from North and South Vietnam. Ten years in the making, the series includes rarely seen and digitally re-mastered archival footage from sources around the...

A team of scientists at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has discovered that a 1,800-year-old papyrus from the Basel Papyrus Collection is an ancient medical text from late antiquity and that it was likely written by the famous Roman physician Galen. The University Library in Basel possesses a collection of 65 papyri, mostly in Greek and several in Coptic, Hieratic and Latin. Less than half of this collection was published by Ernst Rabel in 1917 in Papyrusurkunden der Öffentlichen Bibliothek der Universität zu Basel. With mirror writing on both sides, one of the Basel papyri — dubbed P.Basel 1A —...

Today, Americans have taken so much for granted. We look at our life and think that it is as it has always been. Indeed, it is assumed that the way things are today have always been that way. Yet, the simple and plain truth is that America has changed. Over the last few decades there has been tremendous changes at all levels of American society and culture. For instance, it is a recent phenomenon that restaurants can charge $8 for a cup of coffee. Or, that we have to take a urine sample to get employed. Casual day on Friday,...

The Gulag Museum in Moscow alleged last month that Russian officials permanently destroyed cards with the personal information and the release dates of former inmates. In response to concerns that authorities were attempting to erase the history of Soviet repression, the Interior Ministry noted that physical copies of the records were digitized for permanent storage. The Interior Ministry now admits it does delete some records of gulag survivors, but only those who were not convicted of committing political crimes against the Soviet Union, Russia’s Kommersant business daily reported Wednesday. In a letter sent to gulag historian Sergei Prudovsky, who originally...

How did Americans develop their love affair with driving? Visit the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington and the transportation exhibit “America on the Move” will sell you on the commonly held theory that when Henry Ford made cars affordable, Americans loved them and demanded more and more highways. Of course, that exhibit is sponsored by General Motors, which donated millions to put its name on the collection. But University of Virginia history professor Peter Norton, author of “Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in American cities” contends that’s a myth. Just as outgoing President Dwight...

America is the greatest country on the face of the earth. The greatest of all time. In the entire history of the world — there has never been a country so great. Science proves it. History proves it. It is beyond debate. Therefore, let us celebrate the 50 most American things of all time. WATCH:

It is a fact of American history that three of the five Founding Father Presidents died on the Independence Day anniversary. But was it just a coincidence? Back on July 4, 1831, James Monroe, the fifth President, died at the age of 73 at his son-in-law’s home in New York City. Monroe had been ill for some time and newspapers had reported on Monroe’s illness before his passing. Local and national newspapers were also quick to report after Monroe’s death that they thought his July 4th passing was a “remarkable” coincidence, at the least, since Thomas Jefferson and John Adams...

The Night of the Long Knives was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders. When Hitler rose to power in early 1933, he owed much of his success to the muscle of his Nazi Storm Troopers, the SA, a violent, ruthless army headed by Ernst Röhm, Hitler’s long-time friend. Röhm and his Storm Troopers brought Germany into submission by gaining control of the streets gangster-style and violently eliminating Hitler’s political enemies. However, a threatening, revolutionary force was no longer useful now...

Nevertheless, because of precisely what George Santayana was talking about, we are headed, one unnoticed step at a time, in just that direction It is a no-brainer that we are right now doomed to go through some really bad times. Anybody who tells you anything different is either trying to sell you something or they probably just need to back off on their meds. Nevertheless, Mr. Santayana’s beat-to-death, pure gold adage is about to fall upon us in its full weight because very few around us have even a nodding acquaintance with vital history. I mean, most of the universities...

Students and scholars are up in arms over a decision to cut thousands of years from the Advanced Placement World History curriculum, with some historians fretting it will make the course too "Western-centric." “The College Board wants to remove over 8,000 of those years, and start the course in 1450 CE,” declares a petition seeking to prevent the change, which had already exceeded 11,000 signatures by press time.

It is inevitable that I should seem a rather remote figure to many of you. A successor to the Kings and Queens of history; someone whose face may be familiar in newspapers and films but who never really touches your personal lives. But now at least for a few minutes I welcome you to the peace of my own home. That it is possible for some of you to see me today is just another example of the speed at which things are changing all around us. Because of these changes I am not surprised that many people feel lost...

June 28 is the anniversary of two days that might be said to mark the beginning and end of the First World War. It's the anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife - heirs to the Austrian throne - by Serbian radical Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914, the proximate cause of the beginning of the war. If you're interested in further information on the subject there are hundreds of books and films - the best books I know of (and I'm no expert) are Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August (this won a...