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266 illustrations
In 1873, Horatio Spafford put his wife and four daughters on the SS Ville du Havre, bound for England. He planned to follow in a...
In 1611, a seventeen-year-old painter named Artemisia Gentileschi was assaulted by her tutor in Rome. The trial that followed was public and humiliating — she...
In 1984, an Australian gastroenterologist named Barry Marshall faced a wall of skepticism. He and his colleague Robin Warren had discovered that stomach ulcers were...
On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and opened her mouth to sing. She had not chosen...
In 1939, Marian Anderson was already one of the greatest contraltos the world had ever heard. Toscanini himself said a voice like hers came along...
In 1611, a seventeen-year-old Italian painter named Artemisia Gentileschi was assaulted by her tutor, a fellow artist her father had trusted. The trial that followed...
In 1892, German anatomist Julius Wolff published a discovery that still shapes modern medicine. He found that human bones are not static structures — they...
When NASA's Perseverance rover entered the Martian atmosphere on February 18, 2021, engineers in Pasadena could do nothing but wait. They call it the "seven...
In 1939, contralto Marian Anderson was already celebrated as one of the greatest singers in the world. Conductor Arturo Toscanini had declared hers "a voice...
On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and opened her mouth to sing. Weeks earlier, the Daughters...
In 1508, Michelangelo Buonagiolo stood at the base of the Sistine Chapel and looked up at the vast, empty ceiling above him. He was terrified....
In 1871, Horatio Spafford lost nearly everything in the Great Chicago Fire. Two years later, he sent his wife and four daughters ahead on a...
In 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven stood on stage at the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna for the premiere of his Ninth Symphony. He was almost...
In 1892, German surgeon Julius Wolff published a discovery that still shapes orthopedic medicine today. Known as Wolff's Law, it reveals that human bone remodels...
In 2019, a team of Japanese scientists at the RIKEN Center achieved something remarkable. They placed a sample of carbon atoms under pressures exceeding 40...
In the 1950s, British scientists Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley inserted tiny electrodes into squid nerve fibers to study how electrical signals travel through the...
In Victor Hugo's *Les Misérables*, there is a scene that has haunted readers for over a century. Jean Valjean, the former convict, has rebuilt his...
On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and opened her mouth to sing. Seventy-five thousand people stretched...
On Easter Sunday, 1939, Marian Anderson stood before the Lincoln Memorial and opened her mouth to sing. She had been barred from Constitution Hall because...
In 1984, Australian gastroenterologist Barry Marshall had a theory no one would believe. He was convinced that most stomach ulcers were caused by a spiral-shaped...
In 1929, a twenty-five-year-old German surgeon named Werner Forssmann was convinced that a thin tube could be safely guided into the chambers of a living...
In 1873, Horatio Spafford put his wife and four daughters on a ship bound for England. He planned to join them later. Partway across the...
In 1984, an Australian physician named Barry Marshall was certain he had discovered the true cause of most stomach ulcers — not stress or spicy...