Yes, but perhaps not in the way you might imagine.The Great Wall of China was not impenetrable, although it did help defend against attacks.(Image credit: yangna via Getty Images)The Great Wall of China — built over the course of two millennia to bolster
Yes, no. Maybe so.At its height, the Roman Empire's roads traversed continents to connect important cities and towns to its capital city. This particular road is in Pompeii, Italy.(Image credit: Oliver Helbig via Getty Images)At the zenith of its control,
More recently than you might think.The Blue Mosque in Istanbul. The city was captured by the Ottomans in 1453, but when did its name change from Constantinople?(Image credit: Nikada via Getty Images)Istanbul is a rare place. It's the only city to straddle
The discovery could have just settled a 2,400-year-old debate
(Image credit: Charlene Collins via Getty Images)The iconic green and red watermelon is a sweet, refreshing summer staple. But it wasn't always so sugary or vibrantly colored. So what didwatermelonsoriginally taste and look like, and from where did they o
Scientists may have finally made a complete digital model for the Cosmos panel of a 2,000-year-old mechanical device called theAntikythera mechanismthat's believed to be the world's first computer.First discovered in a Roman-era shipwreck by Greek sponge
Who says it did?
At its peak, the British Empire ruled a quarter of the world's surface and population, but it still isn't history's biggest empire.(Image: © Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)According to Guinness World Records, wh
Strip miners in the eastern Serbian townof Drmno uncovered a flat-bottomed ship and twomonoxyles, or dugout longboats, along the banks of an ancient tributary of the Danube near the garrison at the Roman city of Viminacium. Measuring nearly 50 feet long a
Shrouded in mystery, the Temple of Garni offers a rare glimpse into pre-Christian CaucasiaByBenjamin Kempersmithsonian.comJanuary 5, 2018"Church fatigue?” my tour guide asked rhetorically, noticing my dragging feet and glazed-over eyes. I’d never hea
It was a discovery five years in the making. Back in 2012, an Egyptian-Czech archaeological team discovered initial evidence of a temple in the Abusir necropolis southwest of the country's capital. Now, according to Egypt'sMinistry of Antiquities, the tea
Never finished or used, the small theater has been sought for more than a century by archaeologists
In a remote corner of northwest China, a recently excavated 3,000-year-old sun altar offers clues to how the region's tribal cultures practiced religion thousands of years ago.
On June 29 2014 – nearly three years ago to the day – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took the pulpit at the Great Mosque of Al-Nuri in Mosul in northern Iraq.
Middle Saxon writing tools and a woman's name carved into a tablet have been found at a previously unknown industrial island
Seventy years ago, American chemist Willard Libby devised an ingenious method for dating organic materials. His technique, known as carbon dating, revolutionized the field of archaeology
