Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic Voyage
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What Was Shackleton’s Antarctic Voyage and Why Has It Survived a Century? Ernest Henry Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917 was a planned crossing of the Antarctic continent that became, instead, an accidental masterclass in […]
Baalbek’s Massive Stone Blocks
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What Are the Massive Stone Blocks at Baalbek? Baalbek‘s so-called megaliths are three colossal limestone blocks set into the western retaining wall of the Temple of Jupiter podium, in the Beqaa Valley of modern Lebanon, together with […]
The Southwest Script: Pre-Columbian Mysteries
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What People Mean by a “Southwest Script” The phrase “Southwest script” gathers together a set of very different claims about pre-Columbian writing in North America, and the first task of any honest treatment is to separate the […]
The Disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 What Happened to Raoul Wallenberg? Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who shielded tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews in Budapest in 1944, vanished into Soviet custody on 17 January 1945. He was thirty-two. Soviet officials produced a single 1947 prison-doctor memo claiming […]
The Maine Penny: Evidence of Norse in America
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What the Maine Penny Is, and Why a Single Coin Carries So Much Weight The Maine Penny is a small silver Norwegian coin, struck during the reign of King Olaf Kyrre of Norway between 1067 and 1093, […]
The Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Jacob Waltz, the German-immigrant prospector whose nickname gave the legend its name, died of pneumonia in a Phoenix bedroom on the night of 25 October 1891. He left behind a wooden candle box of high-grade gold ore beneath his bed and, depending […]
The Khmer Empire: Builders of Angkor Wat
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 The Khmer Empire built Angkor Wat between roughly 1113 and 1150 CE under King Suryavarman II, who reigned over a Hindu polity that, at its height, governed much of mainland Southeast Asia. The temple is the surviving centerpiece of a far larger […]
The Expeditions of Roald Amundsen
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Who Was Roald Amundsen and Why Do His Expeditions Still Matter? Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (1872 to 1928) was the Norwegian polar navigator who first sailed the Northwest Passage, first reached the geographic South Pole, and first crossed the Arctic by air. […]
The Georgia Guidestones Mystery
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 Last reviewed: May 7, 2026. What the Georgia Guidestones Were The Georgia Guidestones were a granite monument that stood in a cow pasture seven miles north of Elberton, Georgia, from March 1980 until July 2022. Six slabs, twenty feet tall together, weighing […]
The Giants of Mont’e Prama
By Emilia Wellesley · Published May 7, 2026 · Updated May 13, 2026 What Are the Giants of Mont’e Prama? The Giants of Mont’e Prama are a group of large stone statues carved by the Nuragic civilization of Sardinia, dated by most scholars to the late ninth through early eighth centuries BCE. They were unearthed […]