History All Day – Stories From the Past, Every Day

Colourised scanning electron micrograph of Ebola virus particles, in blue, budding from an infected cell, in yellow

Ebola Was Found Fifty Years Ago in a Thermos Flask Sent From a Mission Hospital

As Nigeria confirms its first Ebola case in a decade, the story of the 1976 Yambuku outbreak, the blue thermos that reached Antwerp, and the river the virus was named after.

Marcus Delacroix · October 23, 2026

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Photograph of a wild emu feeding on dry open ground in outback Australia

Strange History

Australia Sent Machine Guns Against 20,000 Emus in 1932 and the Emus Won

October 23, 2026

Let Them Eat Cake Was in Print Before Marie Antoinette Could Read

October 23, 2026

The Queens Museum, the former New York City Building at Flushing Meadows where the UN General Assembly met from 1946 to 1950, photographed in 2018

Eighty Years Ago the United Nations Moved Into a Skating Rink in Queens

October 23, 2026

The Milwaukee Brewers' ballpark, then called Miller Park, photographed in 2016; it is now American Family Field

The Brewers Were Born When the Seattle Pilots Went Broke After One Season

October 22, 2026

Sepia photograph from 1902 of the interior of the basilica of St John Lateran in Rome, looking toward the Gothic canopy over the high altar

Strange History

The Pope Who Dug Up His Predecessor and Put the Corpse on Trial

October 22, 2026

More Stories

Ink cartoon from February 1962 showing two groups of men in hats and overcoats meeting on a bridge, the figures labelled Abel and Powers passing each other, under the title Better Relations Through Trade

Before Hubbard Came Home, the Cold War Traded Prisoners on a Berlin Bridge

Marcus Delacroix · October 22, 2026

Photochrom print of the Peristyle of Diocletian's Palace in Split, with houses built into the Roman arcade, about 1890 to 1900

World Figureheads

Diocletian Retired From Ruling Rome to Grow Cabbages, and the Empire Split

Tomás Ferreira · October 22, 2026

Strange History

Peter the Great Taxed Beards, and Russians Carried a Copper Token as Proof

Tomás Ferreira · October 22, 2026

Close-up photograph of a torn strip of ancient papyrus with lines of Greek handwriting, a third-century BC fragment of Homer's Odyssey

How Sappho Survived on Rubbish-Dump Scraps and Reached Anne Carson's Nobel

Hannah Lindqvist · October 22, 2026

Photograph of visitors at a window of the Philadelphia Mint in 1888

Why the Penny Lasted 232 Years, and Why the Mint Finally Stopped Making It

Priya Raman · October 22, 2026

Photograph of the twelfth-century Lewis chessmen, carved from walrus ivory, set out on a red and white board in the British Museum

Why We Say Checkmate: A Persian Phrase That Followed Chess Out of India

Eleanor Whitcombe · October 22, 2026

Black and white aerial photograph of the colliery spoil tips on the hillside above Aberfan, with the terraced streets of the village along the left edge, from the 1967 tribunal of inquiry report

Aberfan at 60: The Coal Tip That Buried a School After Ignored Warnings

Marcus Delacroix · October 21, 2026

Photograph of Joshua Norton, self-proclaimed Emperor Norton I, seated with a cane, in a military style coat with epaulettes and a plumed cap, taken before 1880

World Figureheads

Emperor Norton: The Bankrupt Who Ruled San Francisco for Twenty-One Years

Tomás Ferreira · October 21, 2026

An Amish horse and buggy on a country road in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Fascinating Facts About the Amish That Few People Know

Priya Raman · October 21, 2026

Four Halloween guisers in skull and wrestling masks, one holding a toy guitar, sitting on a sofa in Baltasound, Shetland

How Trick-or-Treating Began, From Soul Cakes to a 1927 Alberta Newspaper

Hannah Lindqvist · October 21, 2026

Portrait of the young King Charles II of Spain, the last Spanish Habsburg

Strange History

Incredible Individuals With Unique Genetic Traits

Jonah Okafor · October 21, 2026

Imre Nagy, in glasses and a dark suit, seated at a table between József Darvas and Júlia Rajk at a reunion in the Kossuth Club, Budapest, 13 October 1956

World Figureheads

Seventy Years On, Hungary Still Cannot Decide Where to Put Imre Nagy

Tomás Ferreira · October 20, 2026

The Eiffel Tower lit up at night during the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs, on a tinted postcard

Strange History

The Con Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower for Scrap, Then Tried It Again

Jonah Okafor · October 20, 2026

Annie Edson Taylor standing beside her oak barrel, which is labelled 'Annie Edson Taylor / Heroine of Niagara Falls / Oct 24 1901', in a formal black dress

Strange History

The Schoolteacher Who Went Over Niagara Falls in a Barrel on Her 63rd Birthday

Hannah Lindqvist · October 20, 2026

Illustration of a Pony Express rider galloping past a relay station with a stagecoach and mountains behind

165 Years Ago This Week, One Telegraph Wire Killed the Pony Express in Two Days

Priya Raman · October 20, 2026

Fragments of the Fasti Antiates Maiores, the pre-Julian Roman calendar painted on plaster, showing the columns of months with festival names

Why October Is the Tenth Month, and Why Two Emperors Could Not Rename It

Eleanor Whitcombe · October 20, 2026

A 1918 American poster showing Uncle Sam shaking hands with a boy with a clock for a head, announcing that daylight saving ends on Sunday 27 October

Why We Still Change the Clocks: A Wartime Coal Measure That Never Went Away

Marcus Delacroix · October 20, 2026