Free Republic

A brief tour of Troy, one of the most famous - and confusing - archaeological sites in Turkey. The Ruins of Troy | 7:27 Scenic Routes to the Past | 62.7K subscribers | 30,203 views | October 23, 2026

The remote ruins of Oenoanda, home of the famous Epicurean inscription of Diogenes. Scenic Routes to the Past explores the remote Hellenistic ruins of Oenoanda in northern Lycia. The site features an impressive Roman aqueduct, extensive defensive walls, and the remnants of an agora once home to one of the ancient world's longest philosophical inscriptions, which remains a focus of ongoing archaeological study. The Ruins of Oenoanda | 7:58 Scenic Routes to the Past | 61.7K subscribers | 25,713 views | August 7, 2026

Over 50 years after helping excavate the remarkable Anglo-Saxon site, archaeologist Dr Phil Harding returns to help celebrate and dedicate the reconstruction. Phil Harding Opens Saxon Hall 50 Years After Helping Excavate it | Archaeology Brought to Life | 9:54 Butser Ancient Farm | 10.1K subscribers | 30,788 views | October 22, 2026

Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is one of the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the featured deep image in assigned colors highlighted by emission in hydrogen, wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known...

Watch this full podcast episode where Anthony Delany and Maddy Pelling talk with Irving Finkel about the first ghost, going all the way back to ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest evidence of human belief in ghosts comes from 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Who were these first ghosts? What was the underworld they lived in like? What do these most ancient ghosts tell us about today? Maddy and Anthony's guest today, Irving Finkel, Assistant Keeper [ASSISTANT?] of Ancient Mesopotamian script, languages and cultures in the Department of the Middle East in the British Museum and author of 'The First Ghosts: Most...

In my post several days ago on October 18, I recounted the story of how ignorant Chinese Communist Party ideologues in the late 1950s convinced themselves that they knew how to achieve limitless agricultural production by just ordering each community to produce large, arbitrary amounts of food. Do you want to double grain production? Then just plant twice as many seeds in the same acreage! The ideologues had no idea how agriculture actually worked in the real world. Within a couple of years, there was widespread famine, probably the largest in world history. Tens of millions died horrible deaths of...

Science Norway reports that a stone with a groove running all the way around it was discovered near an islet off the coast of western Norway that is the site of Hespriniholmen, a greenstone quarry estimated to be between 5,000 and 9,000 years old. Greenstone was used to make axes that have been unearthed in western and eastern Norway. Arild Skjæveland Vivås of the Stavanger Maritime Museum said that the team of researchers found the stone, which weighs more than 60 pounds, on an underwater pile of quarry waste. They fastened a rope around the groove and pulled it up...

Additional ring ditches have been discovered at the Hunn burial ground in eastern Norway with ground-penetrating radar, according to a Science Norway report. Standing stone circles are known to have stood in the South Field some 2,000 years ago. The newly uncovered circles were found in the West Field, where traces of large burial mounds remain. "They may have made the circle first in order to plan the construction of the burial monument, or it may have formed because people walked in a circle around it," said Anne Lene Melheim of Norway's Museum of Cultural History. Several possible graves have...

Analysis of more than 190 bones from people who were buried in Scandinavia between about 500 B.C. and A.D. 1050 suggests that violent encounters increased over time, Live Science reports. The remains were interred in domestic areas, but it is not known if the violence occurred during domestic disputes, or as a result of warfare or some form of punishment. "The fact is that not all bodies ended up in monumental burial mounds in the Iron and Viking Ages, or even in more modest urnfields and cemeteries," said Marianne Hem Eriksen of the National Museum of Denmark. Eriksen and her...

This will blow your mind. A team of physicists recently trapped a single antimatter particle for months — a delicate feat where one wrong move could’ve blown up their lab, according to new research. Antimatter, which explodes when it comes into contact with the ordinary matter, was captured by researchers at Northwestern University and stored in a cold box where they used incredibly cold temps and magnets to suspend the particle in midair, according to findings published in the Physical Review Letters. “We actually coaxed this very fast positron to sit there and behave for months at a time,” lead...

Explanation: Is our universe haunted? It might look that way on this dark matter map. The gravity of unseen dark matter is the leading explanation for why galaxies rotate so fast, why galaxies orbit clusters so fast, why gravitational lenses so strongly deflect light, and how visible matter is distributed. The featured image from the American Museum of Natural History's Hayden Planetarium Space Show, Dark Universe, highlights one example of how pervasive dark matter might haunt our universe. In this frame from a detailed computer simulation, complex filaments of dark matter, shown in black, are strewn about the universe like...

The Fine Arts Department has uncovered two more ancient gold rings, including one bearing a rare Brahmi inscription, during excavations at the Don Yai Thong archaeological site. Director-General Phanombut Chantarachot said that archaeologists were recovering human skeletons and artefacts from the site after rising groundwater, salinity and seasonal rain threatened to damage the fragile remains. During the operation, the team discovered two gold rings associated with Skeleton No. 4... The second gold ring has no decorative design. Similar Brahmi inscriptions have previously been found on seals and jewellery at archaeological sites in Krabi and Chumphon, highlighting early trade and cultural...

Especially the neurologically vulnerable .... A March 2026 publication by The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) confirms that Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO) has injected “more than 18,000” pediatric patients under “deep sedation or general anesthesia” who were undergoing surgery or other medical procedures. The revelation comes after this website reported yesterday that Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia has injected 2,054 children with flu vaccines under anesthesia. ... The AAP News piece behind a $35 paywall was written by Drs. Caroline A. Pasquariello and Kim M. Strupp, both anesthesiologists. Their article admits that under anesthesia or sedation, “[a]dditional vaccinations are administered …...

A fiery wreck near Los Angeles International Airport killed one person early Saturday, sending towering flames into the sky and scrambling emergency crews from multiple agencies to the scene. The single-vehicle crash was reported around 5 a.m. near Imperial Highway and S. Hughes Way, an LAPD spokesperson told The California Post. Video from the scene showed enormous flames engulfing the vehicle as Los Angeles Fire Department crews raced to put out the blaze. The car appeared to have suffered catastrophic damage to its front end, leaving it a charred, smoldering wreck once firefighters extinguished the flames. Reports from the scene...

A romantic camping getaway in the New Jersey woods allegedly turned into a nightmare when a Bergen County man burned his girlfriend and abandoned her in the wilderness, authorities say. Justin D. Martin, 36, of Saddle Brook, faces attempted murder and aggravated arson charges following the horrifying Oct. 15 attack in the Colliers Mills area of Plumsted township. According to court documents, the badly injured woman managed to find a worker in the woods and desperately begged him to call 911. The call came at 1:36 pm. She told the worker her boyfriend had tried to kill her and burn...

About 7,300 years ago, Kikai produced the Kikai-Akahoya eruption, a giant event that released an estimated 133 to 183 cubic kilometers of magma in dense rock equivalent. The eruption reshaped the landscape, sent ash across large parts of Japan and left behind a vast caldera south of Kyushu. Now, new seismic research suggests that the magma reservoir involved in that ancient eruption is not empty. It is being refilled.>Snip< One of the most important findings is that the magma under Kikai is probably not simply a leftover pocket from the eruption 7,300 years ago. Chemical studies of later volcanic rocks...

Explanation: This Rosetta spacecraft selfie was snapped on October 7th, 2014. At the time the comet-chasing spacecraft was about 472 million kilometers from planet Earth, but only 16 kilometers from the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Looming beyond the spacecraft near the top of the frame, dust and gas stream away from the comet's curious double-lobed nucleus. Bright sunlight glints off one of Rosetta's 14 meter long solar arrays. In fact, two exposures, one short and one long, were combined to record the dramatic high contrast scene using the CIVA camera system on Rosetta's still-attached Philae lander. Its chosen primary landing...

If asked, rather few people would guess that the deadliest day for America in WWII took place in October, 1944, 9 months before the end of the war. America's Deadliest Day of WWII | 17:32 The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered 1.65M subscribers | 23,586 views | October 23, 2026

That’s rich. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s re-election campaign has spent big bucks on posh hotels — shelling out nearly $50,000 on upscale stays in the past seven months — as the democratic socialist darling rallies against the wealthy, The Post has learned. The New York Democrat’s campaign forked over $47,000 on 45 hotel charges across the country since April, including a $5,044 bill at The Memphian — a bougie boutique hotel in Memphis, with spa services and an extravagant, animal-themed rooftop bar, filings show. The campaign also racked up bills for $1,599 and $2,694 bill at the 4-star The Candler Hotel...

La Brújula Verde reports that an iron window grille has been unearthed near a Roman house at Augusta Raurica, the site of an ancient settlement on the banks of the Rhine River in northwestern Switzerland. Five bars, two crosspieces, and rings that were likely used to attach the grille to a wooden window frame were recovered. Archaeologists also found two nails. The grill had been set in a wall made of stone and mortar that has since collapsed. The building has not yet been dated. To read about previous finds from Augusta Raurica, go to "Oops! Down the Drain."