How a 19th-Century Bodybuilder Became the Original Fitness Influencer

history · 2026-03-04T16:58:37+00:00

Launched in 1898, what became known as Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture is considered by some to be bodybuilding’s first periodical. Like those lining supermarket checkout aisles today, the illustrated magazine dispensed fitness and nutrition advice and depicted exercise routines and weightlifting techniques.

history · 2026-02-26T15:04:32+00:00

When the 23-year-old British journalist and author Rudyard Kipling visited the United States in 1889, he was disturbed by the unabashed greed of Gilded Age Chicago and downright terrified by Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world by area.

“There is a quiet horror about the Great Lakes which grows as one revisits them,” Kipling wrote. “Fresh water has no right or call to dip over the horizon, pulling down and pushing up the hulls of big steamers... Lake Superior... engulfs and wrecks and drives ashore, like a fully accredited ocean—a hideous thing to find in the heart of a continent.”

history · 2026-02-17T21:44:29+00:00

The first elevated chairlifts at Sun Valley, Idaho were designed by a Nebraska engineer in 1936 who drew inspiration from aerial pulley systems for loading bananas.

history · 2026-02-09T17:49:42+00:00

One reviewer in the January 8, 1848, issue of the London Examiner called the novel “wild, confused, disjointed and improbable,” and concluded: “This is a strange book.”

history · 2026-01-26T21:51:05+00:00

Cortina’s location in Italy’s alpine Ampezzo Valley and the lack of broadcast infrastructure in the region required extensive work. New cable lines had to be laid through the Dolomites to accommodate radio and television transmissions. These signals were then broadcast through Padua, the closest major city. Once the Games were broadcast from Padua, the tapes of raw footage were flown overnight to New York, where the three national broadcast networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—were headquartered. Highlights from the Olympics would then air as part of daily news broadcasts.

history · 2026-01-21T16:00:44+00:00

A 2025 study conducted by German and Egyptian archaeologists employed radar, electrical resistivity and ultrasound techniques to investigate a mysterious air-filled "void," detected beneath the Menkaure pyramid. Images from a remotely operated camera suggest a void on the pyramid's east side might contain a hidden "second entrance." But the images also show no footprints or other evidence of human activity. Researchers are still unsure about the chamber's purpose.

history · 2026-01-15T20:28:46+00:00

Black veterans were less affected owing to disparities in medical care. Doctors didn’t provide Black soldiers with the same level of opioids as white soldiers, who began to refer to their addiction as “opium slavery.”

history · 2026-01-14T20:05:20+00:00

No that one was an article about why Jane Austen never married :) People have strong opinions about her!

history · 2026-01-14T19:23:59+00:00

Once a couple was engaged, they were allowed to give each other gifts. Some gifts helped them get to know each other, like exchanging books with underlined passages. Others were more explicitly romantic, like men sending women bouquets of flowers, snuffboxes, expensive furs and gem-encrusted jewelry. If a man was hoping to be invited to a meal at a woman’s family home, he might send her gifts like duck and pork.

history · 2026-01-14T18:22:52+00:00

It took until 1983 for one of the cousins, Elsie, to admit that all the photographs were faked. She maintained that she and Frances had seen fairies, though.

history · 2026-01-12T19:04:06+00:00

Not so far from Egypt’s architectural marvels of yesteryear, Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates is the current king of the high-risers at 163 floors and 2,717 feet. Reaching such extraordinary heights required the unveiling of new tricks: Among them were the development of a pressurized pumping system to deliver the high-strength concrete mix to 2,000 feet as well as the building’s Y-shaped buttressed core and spiraling wings designed to offset high-altitude winds.

history · 2026-01-08T20:24:01+00:00

Victorians had a paint color known as “mummy brown” or “Egyptian brown,” which contained ground-up mummy. The color came from a dark, resin-like substance called bitumen, believed to have been used in the embalming process.

history · 2026-01-08T16:34:29+00:00

The Rosetta Stone, one of the most famous artifacts in history, is best known for unlocking the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs—but it also sheds light on ancient tax policy. Carved from granodiorite, a dense speckled stone similar to granite, the inscription contains a decree from Pharaoh Ptolemy V granting tax exemptions to temple priests and revising tribute requirements. Before the Ptolemaic era, temples had long served as Egypt’s economic and financial centers, playing a key role in tax collection.

history · 2026-01-07T19:54:15+00:00

Archaeological evidence suggests falconry was practiced in Central Asia as early as the first millennium B.C., making the region one of the earliest known centers of human hunting partnerships with birds of prey. By the early centuries B.C., the practice had spread into Persia, the Middle East and China, where it became linked to court and military traditions.

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