Brooklyn, Before It Was A Global Brand
A few hundred years in the borough, from the brownstones to the shipyards. Our critic chats with a fourth-generation Brooklynite and historian.
A few hundred years in the borough, from the brownstones to the shipyards. Our critic chats with a fourth-generation Brooklynite and historian.
Medieval bridges were marvels of engineering, given the technology available at the time — and nowhere more so than in the case of London Bridge, where deep, tidal flows made construction incredibly challenging.
A fascinatingly detailed history of the time-honored tradition of backyard grilling in America.
Before the Patriot Act, before Edward Snowden, this Will Smith movie was asking important questions.
Habbo Hotel is an online community for teens to make friends and buy virtual goods. It also has been a haven for widespread virtual crime.
Here's a bit of Marvel movie trivia: without the Star Wars director's "Howard the Duck" movie from the 1980s, the Wachowskis would never have had the technology to make "The Matrix." Here's how one of the biggest flops, wuxia films and wire work started a small revolution.
"The Last Dance" was entertaining and gave us a glimpse inside Michael Jordan and the 1998 Chicago Bulls. But when it came to Jerry Krause, the documentary could be downright cruel.
Rory Cellan-Jones interviews some of the developers at DMA (now known as Rockstar Games) about creating the first Grand Theft Auto game.
New archaeological research reveals that leaders centralized the Angkor Wat agriculture system shortly before its decline.
Noor Khan, a pacifist descendant of Indian Royalty became a famed World War II spy for Britain's Special Operations Executive.
Take a trip down memory lane as The Hood Internet serves up the top hits of 1986 in a funky remix.
Take a look back at the entertainment legend and master of animation magic during the 1940s.
The Vennbahn passes through three countries, starting at the German town of Aachen, through Belgian territory, and ends in Troisvierges in northern Luxembourg. Along the way it snakes in and out of Germany and Belgium creating a very odd border situation in the region.
Scanty remains of a modern human 45,000 years old found in the Balkans show our ancestors coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe for around 8,000 years.
It's all downhill from here.
MLB's most prolific agent always wanted to be as good as the superstars he would one day represent.
Before the candy-striped restaurant was a big-box affair, it revolutionized American social life.
"Bird greeted fellow 3-point shooting contest participants by asking which one of them would finish in second."
When the video game company found itself with thousands of unsold copies of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, it came up with a solution.
A sandwich made of spicy mashed potatoes and garlic chutney is a key staple of Mumbai's cuisine.
The 1933 double eagle is a rarity for coin collectors and for a time, the circulation of these coins were illegal.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is one of the most respected doctors in America. Where did he come from and how did he get this reputation?
Back in 1996, original hits were possible, VFX was on the rise and sequels didn't rule the universe.
The USS Nevada survived Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Okinawa and two nuclear tests — but the recent discovery of its wreckage raises new questions about what ultimately brought it down.
As "The Last Dance" chronicles MJ's foray into pro baseball, we revisit the perceptions, the misconceptions and the cover story that shaped his time in the minors.
It's an obscure chapter in Cold War history, the time the US's plans to defend the country against Soviet bombers with nuclear missiles went awry.
Newfound Homo sapiens remains date to between about 46,000-44,000 years ago, researchers say.
There are other people who, like Zuck, inaugurated or sped along some paradigm shift in communications and in the process — or as an integral part of the process — wrecked this or that aspect of society.
When a group of schoolboys were marooned on an island in 1965, it turned out very differently from William Golding's bestseller, writes Rutger Bregman.
As the department store files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, its American idea of luxury seems obsolete.
Today's state-of-the-art driverless vehicles have origins dating back to the 1920s, including one automaker who feuded with Harry Houdini.
The genesis of what has come to be known as "one of the most embarrassing moments" of Muhammad Ali's storied career began around 1975 when Ali met the president of the Japanese Amateur Wrestling Association, Ichiro Yada, at a party.
Jo van Gogh-Bonger, the sister-in-law of Vincent Van Gogh, believed the artist's work deserved to be widely seen and was instrumental to his fame.
From Chaucer to Mrs. Robinson, Greek mythology to Stifler's mom, one of literature's most subversive archetypes is also a surprisingly old one.
From MJ and Kobe's budding relationship to the trash-talking of the Dream Team, the longtime broadcaster shares the best memories from his time with the 1990s Bulls.
What happens when a 110 million-year-old dinosaur fossil falls apart while you're digging it out of the ground?
This stunning footage of a gritty New York City streetscape from Christmas 1976 is an eye-popping adventure through time.
"When the Bronco went away, it became even more popular in its absence."
It's been 55 years since Keith Richards literally dreamed up the hit tune.
The new documentary tells the weird and surprisingly uplifting story of Biosphere 2.
Dozens of times over the eons, rove beetles have made complex, independent adaptations to live inside the nests of ants — the phenomenon of convergent evolution. Biologists want to know if this shows patterns at work in natural selection.
The wagon — and the wagon wheel — could not have been put together in stages. Either it works, or it doesn't. And it enabled humans to spread rapidly into huge parts of the world.
Kodak had every opportunity to dominate the digital photo market but let it slip away.
A quarter-century ago, Coca-Cola attempted to subvert itself to reach Gen X. The problem? The soda company's OK Soda was a couple of decades too early.
Nowadays, sneakers aren't just for wearing. They're an asset class, on display at museums, and fueling an increasingly profitable resale market. Much of that traces back to Nike putting a superstar rookie's name on a new pair of kicks in 1985.
The president's plan to abolish slavery hinged on winning a second term — and receiving a long, expensive telegram that almost didn't make it.
Ryan Murphy's new Netflix series "Hollywood" deliberately skews Tinseltown's past in ways both big and small. We separate the facts from the fabrications.
In the early 21st century, the rising young British actor was on an incredible run. But one mean joke on the entertainment world's biggest stage permanently changed how we felt about the "Talented Mr. Ripley" star.
Ryan Murphy's latest show throws out an old lie and gives us a new one.
IQ tests were originally created to determine which children required individualized attention but some of their applications over history have been problematic at best.
In the late 19th-century, at least according to legend, a fight to the death between a greyhound and a timberwolf was the most popular sport on the Native American reservations of South Dakota.
In 1870, the Prussian army laid siege to the French capital. For the first time in its existence, the Louvre not only shut down, but also sent its paintings into exile.
Weapons expert Mike Loades tests out an enormous medieval weapon, courtesy of The Smithsonian Channel
People in the old days were so hellbent on stopping mice, a miniature cannon didn't seem too extreme.
Alone in the long Antarctic night, Adm. Richard E. Byrd endured the ultimate in social distancing.
Dave Markey was a 13-year-old when he filmed the scenes of the skateboarding, surfing and dirtbiking scene in Santa Monica in 1976.
It is good fun, but it's also really tricky to master.
In the LA suburb of San Fernando Valley, a long stretch of Van Nuys Boulevard would be packed with kids and cars from all over Southern California — the place to show off your ride.
In speech context is everything. Six "rules" called the Gricean maxims outline how this can be done.
The women of May 19th bombed the US Capitol and plotted Henry Kissinger's murder. But they've been long forgotten.