How a big blue van from 1986 paved the way for self-driving cars
Despite being bigger than a moving truck and sporting less computing power than a first-gen Apple watch, the Navlab-1 was a surprisingly capable autonomous car
How I fell in love with extremely long, kind of boring history podcasts
Navigating the worst parts of the pandemic required patience. And hobbies. Lots of freakin’ hobbies. Homebound, I looked for things to do to pass the time that didn’t involve…
Photos: 60 years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space
On April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin sat alone in the Vostok 1 spacecraft, hoping to become the first person to travel into space. “Poyekhali!” Gagarin said as liftoff began,…
10 photo archive websites that let you lose yourself in history
Thousands of dedicated historians, photography enthusiasts, and archivists across the globe have spent years digitizing antique and vintage imagery to make it available for everyone to view online. Whether you’re…
Dispatches of love and debauchery from the 1918 flu pandemic
For almost a year now, single people looking for love have had to navigate a — yes, I’m going to say it — unprecedented dating landscape. With methods of meeting…
Just how accurate is the portrayal of Thatcher and the Queen’s relationship on ‘The Crown’?
So, you’ve watched the new season of The Crown. You probably have a few questions, right? Like, did the Queen and Margaret Thatcher really have such a terrible relationship? Could…
Why historian Rutger Bregman thinks that now, of all times, is the moment to be hopeful about the future
Rutger Bregman is a Dutch historian, perhaps best known for absolutely thrashing tax-avoiding billionaires at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos. It’s not hard to trace how a global…
The best history podcasts: 11 shows that tell you forgotten stories
Sure, we’re all living history right now — the catastrophic pandemic, mass protests, creeping global fascism — but that doesn’t mean we should stop learning about other moments of history. …
Photos give glimpses into the long struggle to secure women’s suffrage
On Tuesday, America celebrates the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, which gave women the right to vote nationwide (although there were still roadblocks to the ballot box for Black,…
Autonomous zones like CHAZ have a long history. We need more of them.
If Fox News were our only source of reporting on Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, which sprung up last week as part of the ongoing nationwide protests against police brutality,…