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Paleontologists have described a new species of the extant bee genus Leioproctus from a fossil specimen found in southern New Zealand.Named Leioproctus barrydonovani, the new species lived during the Middle Miocene epoch, some 14.6 million years ago.The ancient insect belongs to Leioproctus, a large genus within the plasterer bee family Colletidae.Extant Leioproctus species are small, black, hairy bees between 4 and 16 mm in length.They are found in Australasia and South America, and include the most common native bees in New Zealand...The specimen (total length of the body is 6.4 mm) was recovered from the Middle Miocene deposits of the...

6. Many of the Hessians opted to stay in AmericaOpportunities in America impressed these soldiers so much that thousands of them opted not to return to their native country. Johann Döhla, an enlisted man who kept a journal about his experiences, wrote upon seeing New York for the first time that, "The American land is good and incomparable land... It is rich and fruitful, well cultivated, and with much grain, especially a great deal of Indian corn; and it has many and beautiful forests of both soft and hardwood trees unknown to us." He went on to write about the...

Looking for a scandalous queen misinterpreted by history? You won't find her here. Philippa of Hainault in fact embodied the medieval romantic ideal of a queen consort, alongside her husband, King Edward III of England, who was also idolised. As a result of behaving well, much less is known of Philippa than her more infamous mother-in-law, Isabella of France. This video looks at Philippa's many achievements, her successful marriage, and the way in which her kindness and gentle nature helped heal a country tired or royal turmoil... The Most Well-Behaved Queen of England In History | Philippa of Hainault |...

The 1,300-year-old temple of Wat Dhammachak Semaram in Sung Noen is famous for housing the oldest reclining Buddha statue in Thailand, which measures 43 feet long. The Thaiger reports that during recent restoration and conservation work, archaeologists uncovered an extraordinary cache of treasures that researchers believe could change scholarly understanding of the region's early Buddhist art. Hidden three feet beneath the sculpture, the team found an earthenware vessel containing 33 gold, silver, and bronze items, including rings and earrings. However, the most noteworthy finds were two repoussé plaques, one gold and one made from a lead-tin alloy. Repoussé is an...

Lots of pictures.

Dr Janina Ramirez explores the fallout of the longest and bloodiest divorce in history, when little England dared to take on the superpower France.Edward III rips up the medieval rule book and crushes the flower of French knighthood at the Battle of Crecy with his low-born archers. His son, the Black Prince, conducts a campaign of terror, helping to bring France to her knees. 1337-1360: Bloodiest Divorce In History | The 100 Years War Episode 1 | 59:00 Timeline - World History Documentaries | 5.63M subscribers | 33,632 views | May 17, 2025

How "Roman" is Times New Roman? | 9:40 toldinstone | 579K subscribers | 9,567 views | May 24, 2025 Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:42 The Latin Alphabet 1:53 Rustic capitals 2:21 Uncial 2:50 Carolingian miniscule 3:32 Gothic 4:24 The Book 5:26 The first fonts 6:05 Littera Antiqua 6:46 Aldus Manutius and his successors 7:40 Times New Roman 8:07 How Roman?

“The Quran gained a popular readership among Protestants both in England and in North America largely out of curiosity,” says Denise A. Spellberg, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of Thomas Jefferson’s Qu'ran: Islam and the Founders. “But also because people thought of the book as a book of law and a way to understand Muslims with whom they were interacting already pretty consistently, in the Ottoman Empire and in North Africa.” When Jefferson bought his Quran as a law student in 1765, it was probably because of his interest in understanding Ottoman law....

There is no single answer to this puzzle. Dinosaurs dominated the planet for around 179 million years and during that time, evolved into an enormous array of different shapes and sizes. Some were tiny, like the diminutive Albinykus, which weighed under a kilogram (2.2lbs) and was probably less than 2ft (60cm) long. Others were among the biggest animals to have ever lived on land, such as the titanosaur Patagotitan mayorum, which may have weighed up to 72 tonnes. They ran on two legs, or plodded on four. And along with these diverse body shapes, they would have produced an equally...

The nation of the Franks are well known today as the progenitors of modern France, as well as the barbarian nation that most readily and ardently embraced Catholicism. As Saint Avitus of Vienne shows in his letter to King Clovis upon the latter’s baptism in AD 496, the subject Christian Romans placed great hopes in the conversion of the Frankish king and his court, and the event was an occasion of great joy. This was particularly true given Clovis’s previous history as a ruthless conqueror who defeated and dissolved the last remnant of Western Roman power in Gaul, the so-called...

Hürriyet Daily News reports that after six years, archaeologists have completed excavation of the theater in the ancient city of Prusias ad Hypium, known as the "Ephesus of the western Black Sea." Located in ancient Bithynia near modern-day Düzce, the settlement was an important trade hub along the road from Nicomedia to Amastris. Its large theater dates back to the third century b.c. and eventually held a capacity of 10,000 people. Over the past several seasons, the excavation team has uncovered several extraordinary works of art, including the head of a Medusa statue, a sculpture of Alexander the Great, and...

Australian National Maritime Museum announced that a team of archaeological divers believe they have located the wreck of Koning Willem de Tweede. The 800-ton Dutch merchant sailing vessel was lost in Guichen Bay off South Australia in 1857. The team used marine magnetometry and underwater metal detectors in an area where the ship reportedly went down and were able to identify the ruins of a large ship measuring 460 feet long by 140 feet wide, which match the Dutch vessel's documented dimensions. Components from what appears to be the ship's windlass were also seen protruding from the seafloor and fragments...

..."The unusually well-preserved mummy in the church crypt of St Thomas am Blasenstein is the corps of a local parish vicar, Franz Xaver Sidler von Rosenegg, who died in 1746," said Dr Andreas Nerlich, a pathologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and first author of the Frontiers in Medicine article. "Our investigation uncovered that the excellent preservation status came from an unusual type of embalming, achieved by stuffing the abdomen through the rectal canal with wood chips, twigs and fabric, and the addition of zinc chloride for internal drying."The team conducted extensive analyses, including CT scanning, focal autopsy, and radiocarbon dating. The mummy's...

Abstract: Among growing indications of human occupation in the coastal regions of southern and southeastern Arabia extending into the Neolithic and beyond, this study introduces new archaeological evidence, namely bifacial arrowheads and trihedral points, suggesting human presence at the Saruq Al-Hadid site in the fringe of Rub' Al Khali during the mid-Holocene period. Human activities in the site are dated to the 'Dark Millennium' and Bronze Age. We suggest that Contexts 10 and 8 are an extension of the activities of the Horizon IV, located 20 m to the West. This is evidenced by the similarity in the simple reduction...

Rome police detained a German tourist as he cruised down a street on a rented electric scooter with the marble base of a Roman column between his feet.Carabinieri officers spotted the 24-year-old tourist transporting the "souvenir" along Via Vittorio Veneto, an upmarket street near the Villa Borghese park, on Wednesday afternoon.The man was cited for possessing a "cultural asset of historical and artistic interest", according to a statement from the Carabinieri.Officers seized the marble base which will be subject to further checks to trace its site of origin.It was not clear how the tourist came into possession of the ancient...

A centuries-old tomb uncovered in China reveals a stunning discovery that challenges everything we know about the Tang dynasty. Among the vibrant murals, a mysterious foreign figure stands out. A Panoramic View Of The Tomb. Photo courtesy of Jinyang Ancient City Research Institute | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel ========================================================================= In 2018, construction work on a road in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in northern China, led to an unexpected archaeological discovery. Researchers uncovered a tomb from the Tang dynasty, dated to the year 736 AD, that contained detailed murals illustrating everyday life during that period. The tomb...

U.S. Fire that destroyed historic Clayborn Temple in Memphis was intentionally set, investigators say By Updated on: May 21, 2025 / 6:11 PM EDT / CBS/AP The fire that destroyed the Clayborn Temple, a historic Black church in downtown Memphis that was the organizing point for Martin Luther King Jr.'s final campaign in 1968, was intentionally set, investigators said Wednesday. The Memphis Fire Department said the fire on April 28 was started on the interior of the church, and authorities are searching for a person of interest. Memphis Fire Chief Gina Sweat last month described the inside of the church...

Little remains of the historic Nottoway plantation home in Iberville Parish after a fire reduced the 160-year-old mansion to rubble on Thursday. Charred pieces framework had fallen to the slab, with soot surrounding the once grandiose property. The prominent white columns that supported the roof were mostly gone. White Castle officials are investigating what caused the fire and have begun combing through the remains.

For centuries, the Fengyang Drum Tower stood tall over the Chinese Anhui province, working like a sort of clock marking the time of day, and announcing the beginning of official ceremonies. But the passage of time and a recent renovation have led to a disaster last Monday that very nearly ended in a catastrophe costing human lives. CNN reported: “Visitors to a centuries-old tourist site in eastern China were sent scrambling after hundreds of roof tiles came loose and cascaded more than two stories to the ground.” MULTIPLE VIDEOS AT LINK............. The Fengyang drum Tower is one of the largest...

Israeli archaeologists say it is the second such find at the same site within the last year.A 2,300-year-old ring has been discovered in Jerusalem’s ancient City of David, in the second such find at the same site within the last year, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Wednesday.The small size of the ring, gold and set with a red gemstone, indicates that it belonged to a youngster living in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period more than two millennia ago, the state-run archaeological body said.The member of the excavation team who found the ring initially thought it was a modern...