The wild, early history of the tunnel across the English Channel

The Channel Tunnel consists of an underwater network of over 200 kilometers in length

The passage beneath the English Channel between England and France includes three tunnels, crossover chambers, emergency passages, and air ducts. Burrowing teams in either country consistently checked their coordinates to ensure they would meet within two centimeters of each other.

The simplicity of immersed tube tunnels

Tunnels have traditionally bored holes through the earth below the water. On the other hand, immersed tube tunnels connect hollow, massive sections in trenches along the floor of the body of water. Each section is built on land, floated to the site, submerged, and connected. This method saves money by reducing expensive underground work, and it preserves an area's aesthetic appearance.

Around 380 underwater cables power the Internet across the world.

On July 29, 1858, two steam-powered battleships met in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, they connected two ends of a 4,000 kilometer (2,500 mile) long, 1.5 centimeter (0.6 inch) wide cable, linking for the first time the European and North American continents by telegraph.

The archaeological sites uncovered through London's Crossrail Project

The Crossrail Project is an underground train system in London, which saw 26 miles of new tunnels created over more than a decade. The project provided unique access to long-buried layers of London's history, and a massive parallel archaeological excavation took place.

The US finished what the French had started with Panama's canal

For about two decades, Suez Canal-builder and Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps led the project, but financial troubles forced it into the hands of the US, who completed it in 1914. This timeline, made to accompany the definitive PBS American Experience documentary about the canal, highlights major moments in its construction.

NYC's first subway was built largely in secret

In 1870, Alfred Ely Beach secretly tunneled under Broadway in 58 nights, disguising his pneumatic subway as a mail tube to fool Tammany Hall, the corrupt political machine that ran New York City. Nearly half a million New Yorkers rode it before politics, and a stock market crash killed the project.

A West Berlin student dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall—29 East Germans escaped

This podcast recounts how a young West Berlin student excavated a secret 135‑meter tunnel beneath the Berlin Wall in 1962. A total of 29 East Germans escaped to freedom, even as a Stasi mole threatened exposure.

How William the Conqueror expanded into England

It took William "the Bastard," the king of Normandy across the English Channel from England, over two decades so solidify control of the land he famously conquered in 1066. This video explores the audacious, risky history of the Norman king's move, focusing on the role the Bayeux Tapestry played as propaganda for the famous conqueror.

Britain’s bottle innovation saved Champagne

Champagne wouldn’t be where it is today without a surprising partner: 17th-century British glassmakers. An energy crisis caused by deforestation—not enough trees to burn—led to the search for an alternative fuel source. Enter coal. The plentiful resource burned much hotter than wood, creating stronger glass that could stand up to the pressure of the carbon monoxide produced by the wine’s second fermentation and solving one of the fledgling industry’s most vexing problems.

Detailing the horrific conditions of life in the trenches

What was it like to live and fight in a trench during World War I? If you were on the German side you might have bunkers, electricity, and other basic comforts. If you were on the British and French side the conditions have been described as muddy and "horrific". Find out how unpleasant trench warfare was and how it affected WWI soldiers.

Wormholes, though unstable, would offer a theoretical shortcut through spacetime

These hypothetical distortions in the fabric of spacetime may connect vast distances across or even between universes. While science fiction often portrays them as traversable tunnels, the energy and matter required to keep a wormhole open defy current physical understanding.

A fun, illustrated history of the Jurassic Coast

The 95-mile stretch of coastline along England's southern shores known as the Jurassic Coast is unique in the world due to its clear demonstration of 185 million years of geological history. Now, you can see the story of that formation told in a whimsical, absorbing video created by artist Tim Britton and his pen.

Stonehenge was part of a continent-wide "henge" boom

While Stonehenge is the most famous, it was one of roughly 1,300 henges built across prehistoric Europe. This piece from the British Museum situates Stonehenge within the broader ceremonial tradition.

The deepest human-made hole on Earth is in Russia’s Arctic North

Driven by Cold War competition, the Kola Superdeep borehole was a project in the 1970s to uncover the composition of the Earth by boring underground. The mission managed to go 7.6 miles into Earth’s crust, the deepest human-made hole on Earth.

The hidden hallway behind Mount Rushmore and why it’s unfinished

Mount Rushmore was designed to be more than a massive monument to US presidents, and its ambitious plans were part of the reason why. This fascinating video explores its backstory, creation, and the hidden tunnel behind President Lincoln's head.

Churchill’s 1946 ‘Iron Curtain’ speech warned of growing Soviet domination

In a 1946 speech, Winston Churchill declared that an “Iron Curtain” had descended across Europe—dividing East from West. The address marked one of the first public acknowledgments of the emerging Cold War and coined the term that would define the conflict.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

London bankers created the first clearinghouse to process checks in 1770

Until that time, each banker was required to bring that day's checks to every other bank for settlement. Perhaps understandably, the first place bankers opted to gather to clear and settle checks was a tavern known as the Five Bells. The innovation gave rise to what would become clearinghouses, key institutions that facilitate payments.

The Boring Company was created by Elon Musk in 2017

While it started out as a subsidiary of SpaceX, the Boring Company became an independent entity in 2018. Musk started it with the aim of helping reduce city traffic via underground tunnels.

Civilian 'little ships' saved Dunkirk: over 700 civilian boats joined the evacuation

Between May  26 and June 4, 1940, Operation Dynamo evacuated roughly 338,000 Allied soldiers from Dunkirk, France. Crucially, over 700 civilian “little ships”—yachts, fishing boats, pleasure craft—ferried troops from the shallow beaches to larger vessels, embodying a national rescue effort and preserving the core of Britain’s army for the war ahead.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Their 1901 Wind Tunnel system revolutionized the study of aeronautics

Only the second to be built in the US, the wind tunnel allowed the brothers to study how air moves around more than 200 different wing shapes. This data helped them refine a key math equation, long held as the standard, that had been based only on one wing shape.

The history of deep-sea mining and its governance by the International Seabed Authority

The British HMS Challenger research vessel identified metal-rich seafloor rocks between Hawaii and Mexico in the 1870s, but rules governing which nations control which parts of the ocean were not established until 1958 by the UN. It later established the ISA to oversee mineral-related operations in international waters.

Thomas Cook invented modern tourism

In the mid-1800s, Cook took wealthy Britons on tours of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the US, often packaging together transportation, lodging, and food, effectively creating the modern travel agent. He also pioneered travel writing, with “Travellers Handbooks” offering tourists tips for visiting various countries.

Mapping early New York

Want to see how Wall Street (and New York City as a whole) has changed over time? Use this timeline and map to see Manhattan today overlaid with the precise boundaries of early land grants to the Dutch in the 1600s. Scroll through the progress of city building through the first century of European settlement there.

An architect ranks the best bridges in the world

Architext Ezra Groskin builds bridges and argues that the best bridges do more than allow traffic. They should, he believes, encourage human interaction and lingering to ultimately become a destination of their own. Explore ten stunning designs that connect communities, from New York to Switzerland.

How the Discovery Channel was originally built for lifetime learners

Founder John Hendricks envisioned Discovery as a launchpad for educational content that was both informative and engaging. Since, the channel has spawned dozens of other channels, merged with major studios, and launched its own streaming platforms.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.