Free Republic

The polybolos has long been a legendary weapon of Roman military might, both in the sense that it could inflict tremendous damage and that it may never have existed. But archaeologists and engineers from the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli and the University of Bologna have identified ancient artillery holes that they believe correspond to shots from the device, according to a Diario AS report.The polybolos, literally "multiple thrower," was a chain-driven freestanding catapult that fired metal-tipped bolts from a magazine in quick-repeating succession, automatically, according to a description by Philo of Byzantium, a Greek engineer living in the third...

When Murad Awadallah, 55, from the village of Ein Naqquba west of Jerusalem, used to pass by the nearby Yad Vashem museum, he thought the Holocaust was “a closed club of today’s elite — people who came from Germany and other European countries. We, the Arabs, did not enter the museum, because we didn’t know what it was about or what it had to do with us,” he recalls. “For me, it was an internal discourse among Jews, unrelated to me.” “I first heard about the Holocaust from my father...He told me about a friend he worked with — an...

The woman famously known as “Baby Jessica” over her dramatic miracle rescue from a Texas well as a tot in 1987 has just been busted for alleged domestic assault, authorities said. Jessica McClure Morales, now 40, was arrested Saturday night over a disturbance at her home in Midland County, Texas, where she is believed to live with her husband, Daniel Morales, and their two kids, KXAN reported. Authorities have not released details about the incident, but McClure Morales was charged with assault causing bodily injury involving family violence. Her arrest comes decades after the now-married mom of two made global...

According to a report in The Korea Herald, Jeong Choong-won of Seoul National University and an international team of researchers conducted a genetic study of 78 individuals buried in 44 tombs in South Korea's Imdang-Joyeong burial complex, which was in use during the Three Kingdoms period between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. The scientists detected evidence of close-kin marriages and family-based sacrificial burials among the occupants of the burials. Most of the tombs in the complex consist of a main burial chamber and a secondary chamber. In at least 20 of the main chambers, the researchers found evidence of...

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced plans to open the city’s first government-run supermarket in East Harlem next year, a move critics warn could cost taxpayers millions and undercut nearby private grocers. Mamdani vowed during an address celebrating his first 100 days in office Sunday that the city will have five government-run grocery stores by the end of his first term on Jan. 1, 2030, falling in line with promises made during his campaign. "I was elected as a Democratic socialist, and I will govern as a Democratic socialist," Mamdani said. But Daniel Di Martino, a Venezuelan-born fellow at...

According to a statement released by the University of Tübingen, evidence of quarrying some 220,000 years ago has been discovered at the Jojosi site in eastern South Africa by a team of researchers led by Manuel Will of the University of Tübingen. It had been previously thought that early modern humans found stones for making tools incidentally as they looked for food. Team member Gunther Möller reassembled more than 350 rock fragments recovered from the site into "refits," or stones that had been broken apart by knapping. "With these 3D puzzles, we were able to see precisely where and how...

A new analysis of turtle shell fragments unearthed at the Paleolithic site of Neumark-Nord in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt suggests Neanderthals regularly hunted the diminutive European pond turtle. A team led by archaeologist Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser from the Institute for Ancient Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz analyzed 92 turtle shell fragments from the site dating back 125,000 years, and found evidence that the turtles had been butchered and their shells cleaned. The team suspects Neanderthals did not eat the turtles, which grow to be no longer than eight inches and weigh around two pounds. "Pond turtles have a comparatively...

The Iranian regime executed more than 1,600 people last year — marking a three decade high not seen since the end of the Islamic Republic’s war against Iraq in 1989. The shocking figures were included in a joint report released by the nonprofit Iran Human Rights and Together Against the Death Penalty, which estimated that in 2025 at least four people were put to death each day in Iran. In total, at least 1,639 were executed in Iran last year, the highest reported number since the post-war bloodbath in 1989, where an estimated 1,700 political prisoners were executed, according to...

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice under former President Joe Biden “withheld evidence” and approved “aggressive arrest tactics” when targeting pro-life defendants — and then slapped them with longer prison sentences than pro-abortion ones, according to an explosive internal review released Tuesday. The DOJ revealed the stunning abuses in a nearly 900-page report after examining more than 700,000 records related to the Biden administration’s prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. The 1994 law was passed to protect access to houses of worship, religious institutions, abortion clinics and pregnancy resource centers. But the Biden DOJ was...

DC is in full meltdown mode after Eric Swalwell announced on Monday he would resign from Congress amid explosive sexual misconduct allegations — sparking a firestorm of speculation from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. The bombshell departure of the high-profile Trump critic came via a somber written statement in which Swalwell apologized for his conduct and admitted to “mistakes in judgement” while still pushing back on the most serious accusations — including an ex-staffer who claimed he raped her. But his attempt to control the narrative quickly unraveled. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) torched Swalwell in a series...

According to a statement released by the University of Liège, a 2,000-year-old fragment of papyrus recovered from the archives of the French Institute of Oriental Archaeology in Cairo preserves 30 previously unknown verses written by Empedocles of Agrigentum, a Greek philosopher who lived in the fifth century B.C. The work of Empedocles had been known only through quotes recorded by later authors, such as Plato, Aristotle, and Plutarch. Papyrologist Nathan Carlig of the University of Liège realized that the papyrus fragment, labeled P. Fouad inv. 218, was an unknown fragment of Physica, a poem written by Empedocles. These verses concern...

A new study of southern Norway's Raknehaugen mound conducted by Lars Gustavsen of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research suggests that it does not contain a burial and may have been built in response to a landslide, according to a Phys.org report. "I actually discovered the landslide scar more or less by accident," Gustavsen said. "While investigating the visibility of the mound using LiDAR data, it suddenly appeared in one of the visualizations I was using to analyze the landscape," he said. When the mound was excavated in 1869 and 1870, no central burial mound was found. Excavations in...

A sixth-grade educator withdrew from consideration for Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year award after photos of him dressed in leather bondage while participating in an XXX-rated BDSM performance resurfaced online. Thomas Rosengren, a teacher and theater director in the Atwater Cosmos Grove City public school system, was named one of 11 finalists for the coveted award last week. On Monday, though, Education Minnesota tweaked its list, adding a brief note that Rosengren “has withdrawn from consideration.” Alpha News Minnesota reported that the sudden elimination came just four days after it reached out to Education Minnesota inquiring about damning photos that...

Rep. Eric Swalwell finally quit Congress on Monday amid accusations of rape and sexual abuses, but the larger scandal is how long he got away with it. Fellow Democrats kept mum for years, though his sleazy behavior toward women has reportedly been long known; nor did the left-leaning media in California or Washington investigate the rumors — even after he notoriously fell for a Chinese “honeypot” agent. Dems plainly only turned on Swalwell in a bid to thin the field in California’s governor race, where two Republicans now lead the nonpartisan “jungle” primary and so might lock out the donkeys...

Archaeologists have uncovered a previously unknown remnant of Thomas Jefferson’s era at Monticello: a brick kiln used to build his home. The kiln was recently found on the east side of the Founding Father’s home amid an excavation that began in March, officials said. Monticello historians believe it dates back to the early 1770s, sometime before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was part of the construction of Monticello I, the first version of Jefferson’s home. The current structure reflects a later rebuild and expansion completed after his time in France, after 1789. Photos from the site...

Nobody really budgets for a financial car crash in April. But that’s exactly what millions of Americans are dealing with this year. Instead of the refund they were counting on to finally pay off Christmas gifts or fund a summer trip, tax season 2026 is handing them a bill. And for a lot of people, it’s not a small one. It’s the kind of bill that makes you want to throw your laptop out a window. The reasons aren’t actually that complicated – the government practically set a trap for anyone with a side hustle. Between confusing tax law changes,...

The Department of Homeland Security is investigating allegations that embattled lefty California Rep. Eric Swalwell illegally employed a Brazilian nanny, officials said. Swalwell allegedly hired the nanny for his children and she continued to work for the family after her work authorization permit expired in 2022, the California Post exclusively revealed. DHS is now investigating after the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) referred the case to the department, Politico reported. “USCIS has been collecting information on the allegations involving Congressman Eric Swalwell hiring of a Brazilian national as a nanny without lawful work authorization,” DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis...

A new text poll is asking California voters if they would write in former Vice President Kamala Harris on to the ballot for the California governor’s race. The poll, according to shared screenshots, lists three to four questions on the California Democrat. It asked about the chances of the voter writing in Harris’s name, and then it asked in the scenario that Harris was actually running a write-in campaign, who the voter would elect. The survey then asks the voter whether he or she thinks the process of writing someone is easy or not. According to the California Secretary of...

According to a Phys.org report, Haichao Li of Sichuan University led a team of researchers in the analysis of fragments of iron discovered in southwestern China at the Sanxingdui site, a city occupied between 2800 and 600 B.C. So far, eight sacrificial pits containing metal objects such as bronze masks, trees, and figurines have been excavated at the site. The three iron fragments, which appear to have been parts of an ax-like weapon, were discovered in Pit 7. Because this object was found in the sacrificial area, the researchers suggest that it had ritual significance. Metallographic and scanning electron microscopy-energy...

According to a Phys.org report, a team of researchers led by Jean-Luc Houle of Western Kentucky University explored two Late Bronze Age mounds in Mongolia known as khirigsuurs for evidence of feasting. Khirigsuurs, found in Mongolia and parts of southern Siberia, usually contain human burials and are surrounded by deposits of horse skulls. These are sometimes accompanied by horse neck vertebrae and hooves, and the burned bones of sheep or goats. Houle and his colleagues looked for the rest of these horses and evidence of butchering at khirigsuur ZK-956, which has been dated to between 1054 and 906 B.C. A...