Smithsonian Magazine

08/24/2025

Spanning across western South America, the Inca Empire was the largest pre-Columbian empire in the Americas. The Incas used intricate knotted cords, known as khipus, to store information. These cords were used to record events, contracts and even, potentially, stories and myths. https://bit.ly/4mXH6I3

📸 Hyland, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews via Science Advances

08/24/2025

For the residents of Aogashima, an island about 200 miles due south of Tokyo, 1785 was an unforgettable year. Although they weren’t alive to witness the deadliest event in island history, they know what unfolded all too well. Why hasn't that changed their mind about living atop a real-life volcano? https://bit.ly/4n0Q1bN

📸: Charly W. Karl / Flickr/Creative Commons

08/23/2025

He helped and manipulated kings and queens, staged naval parades on the Thames, raised an army to invade Ireland, and plotted an invasion of Florida. He was even rumored to be an illegitimate son of England’s Henry VIII, though this claim is extremely tenuous. Who was he? https://bit.ly/4n1d6es

📸 © The Trustees of the British Museum

08/23/2025

Humans have been modifying their bodies for millennia. In some cultures, alterations like foot binding, neck lengthening and tattoos are related to class, beauty ideals or spirituality. But research suggests the Hirota people of ancient Japan had a more practical reason for modifying their infants’ skulls. What was it? https://bit.ly/4mWjbZu

📸: The Kyushu University Museum

08/23/2025

Modern humans, technically called Homo sapiens, are the only surviving species of the genus Homo. The oldest Homo fossil remains date back to between around two million and three million years ago, which is the same time period during which Australopithecus afarensis, a potential ancestor of Homo, vanishes. Unfortunately, it’s also a time period with an incomplete fossil record, leaving many questions unanswered about the origin of our genus and its contemporaries. Can these recently found molars fill in the gaps? https://bit.ly/45E2ryY

📸: Villmoare, B., et al., Nature (2025) via Wikimedia Commons

08/23/2025

In the 16th century, England’s Henry VIII broke with the pope, established the Church of England and named himself its supreme head—a sequence of events now known as the Reformation. By that point, the country was home to more than 800 monasteries and convents. Because they served as reminders of the Catholic Church’s power, the king had them dissolved in the late 1530s. This act put an end to monastic life in England, which included, among other practices, singing.

Now, singers are performing some of that long-lost monastic music and you can hear them sing: https://bit.ly/4oPWzeN

📸: University of Exeter

08/23/2025

In 1935, a Metropolitan Museum of New York archeological expedition working near Luxor in Egypt came across a mysterious mummy. They were excavating the tomb of Senmut, the female Pharaoh Hatchepsut’s architect and overseer of royal works when they found Senmut’s mother’s burial chamber. But the space also housed another mummy—a woman wearing a black wig, two scarab-shaped rings and a shocking and eerie screaming expression. She was called the “Screaming Woman.”

Almost nine decades after her discovery, research is revealing interesting details about her burial: https://bit.ly/4oQ6ml2

📸: Sahar Saleem

08/23/2025

In the 17th century, a prolific English writer named Alice Thornton cataloged her life in, not one, but four versions of her autobiography. In one book, she recalls that a man named Mr. Tancred wagered she’d remarry within a month if her husband died. She wrote that her “dear husband” said “he would be revenged of that traitor for traducing so much his chaste and innocent wife with such a false lie.”

Researchers have digitized all four volumes. Here's how you can read them online: https://bit.ly/4fR72m7

📸: U.K. Research and Innovation

08/23/2025

A duo of researchers analyzed 199 independent whale-dolphin interactions sourced from photos and videos shared on social media platforms. The events in the posts spanned 17 countries and took place across two decades. From these records, the team identified interactions between six whale and 13 dolphin species, showing the animals seemingly playing and swimming with each other. How do these interactions play out? https://bit.ly/4lS8xCg

📸: Roving Media via Griffith University

08/23/2025

Found alongside cremated human remains, the slab depicts an individual wearing a headdress and necklace, two items researchers typically associate with women. The figure also has two swords, which are often associated with men, as well as male genitalia. How is this challenging historians’ understanding of gender roles in Iberian society? https://bit.ly/3VdrTqj

📷: Durham University

08/23/2025

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