Rome's legendary founders Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf

The Etruscans laid the foundations for Roman civilization

When we put aside the myths and legends about Rome's founding, one group takes center stage: the Etruscans. This now-vanished, Greek-like culture laid the foundations of Rome's alphabet, art, and more. Etruscan culture dominated northern Italy in the centuries before the Roman Republic.

Wildlife use Rome's sprawling archaeological sites as urban havens

The Italian capital features some of the world's most famous monuments as the inheritor of ancient Rome's grandeur. This photo essay explores the city's vibrant collection of wildlife, including long-concealed native crabs, peregrine falcons, and the beaver-like nutria.

Ancient Romans helped develop modern cheese production techniques

The ancient Romans loved cheese and experimented with different processes to elevate its flavor, like aging. Some of their innovations, like Pecorino Romano, you can still find today. Others, like the smoked goat-milk Caseus, we only know about through historical records.

Becoming a man in ancient Rome

In ancient Rome, boys between the ages of 14 and 17 underwent a traditional ceremony marking their transition from childhood to adulthood. This article explores what we know about this common practice and its significance. Learn about the ritual celebration, which included a new white toga, sacrifices, and becoming registered as a citizen.

Bake bread like a Roman, and honor Ceres, the goddess of wheat

Grains made up about 70% of the Roman diet, and the word "cereal" stems from the goddess Ceres—the Roman equivalent of Greece's Demeter—to whom they prayed for good harvests. Cato the Elder, a famous statesman, left behind a simple home recipe for a Roman loaf.

‘Roman military pensions’ were among the first known pensions in history

Instituted by the first Roman emperor, Augustus, around 13 BCE, these early iterations of pensions made it so soldiers sometimes received about a decade's worth of their pay, plus some land to live on. Augustus instituted these pensions to secure loyalty and reduce the risk of coups and unrest. This video includes more fun tidbits about the history of retirement.

The story of Sporus, the castrated boy who married Emperor Nero

Ancient Romans’ views of homosexuality are quite different from Western understandings. Nero was an emperor is infamous for his cruelty, and appears to have heaped that cruelty upon Sporus, a boy he fell for and married in a public ceremony. As a slave, Sporus was held captive at the whims of Nero and subject to the class-based rules on same-sex relationships in ancient times.

Some believe Valentine's Day evolved from the Roman holiday Lupercalia

The festival, which took place in mid-February, featured Roman priests sacrificing a goat and using its hide to lightly slap women and the land, believing it would bring fertility. Some believe that the Catholic Church repurposed the pagan holiday as a Christian one by attaching it to a saint, but scholars are not certain that this is true.

See how migrating tribes reshaped Europe after the fall of Rome

During the early Middle Ages (c. 300–700 CE), groups such as the Franks, Vandals, Visigoths, and Suebi migrated into former Roman territories. Their movements transformed European politics and culture while preserving many Roman traditions.

'Romeo and Juliet' was based on a preexisting narrative poem

Arthur Brooke's "The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet" was first published in 1562 and shares many details with Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Shakespeare wasn't alone in his borrowing; Brooke's poem was based on other earlier Italian stories. None of this writing was considered fan fiction—copyright law didn't exist, and stories were regularly cribbed from preexisting sources.

The Greeks named their dogs with short names similar to modern ones

Xenophon, a historian from ancient Greece, proposed that the best dog names were limited to one or two syllables and referenced important qualities, like courage or speed. Some ideas: Aura, meaning "breeze," or Corax, a raven.

Stonehenge has produced wild origin stories

Built before the wheel was invented, Stonehenge inspired increasingly fantastical explanations—from a 12th-century tale of Merlin and Nephilim giants to 1960s claims that aliens built it alongside the pyramids.

The legend of the Chinese zodiac involves a race between animals

The legend of the Chinese zodiac says that to help people keep time, the emperor of the gods established a 12-year cycle, with each year symbolized by a different animal. To choose the animals, he held a cross-river race. Each of the winning animals used their unique skills to get across the river: The snake is sneaky, the rabbit is nimble, and the rat is cunning. These characteristics are believed to be mirrored by those born under the animals’ zodiac signs.

What was the Great Fire of Rome?

In the hours between July 18 and 19 in 64 CE, the glittering capital of ancient Rome became engulfed in flames. This 46-minute podcast details the Great Fire of Rome that destroyed much of the city, according to historical literary sources. The fire burned for nine days after starting at market stalls near the Palatine Hill and the Circus Maximus, one of the city's largest chariot racing stadiums. The fire's cause remains unknown.

Buford the Pyrenees showered with gifts after rescuing 2-year-old boy lost in the desert

The young boy wandered away from his family home and ended up spending the night alone in the Arizona wilderness. A search party of more than 40 people and a helicopter participated in looking for the boy. A dog named Buford eventually found the child and led him back to a ranch, allowing him to soon be reunited with his family. Once the story broke, Buford started receiving an influx of toys and treats from strangers.

A Roman-era cemetery in York may hold the remains of gladiators

A burial ground in York, used from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE, contained around 80 skeletons of unusually tall and muscular young men. Many show fatal combat wounds, including one with a bite mark from a large predator.

A cave painting might be the oldest illustrated story ever recorded

A nearly 44,000-year-old cave painting may be the oldest story ever recorded, offering viewers a tale of human-like creatures on a hunt. This article details the discovery of the cave and its archaeological implications.

Researchers think most of its residents escaped with their lives—but how?

With only a few hundred bodies recovered, evidence suggests most Pompeiians fled. This TED-Ed animation follows the stories of three hypothetical residents—one who stayed inside, one who ran, and one who fled by sea—to illustrate how their survival ultimately depended on the choices they made.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

How the Grimm Brothers saved the fairy tale

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm are responsible for putting the oral stories of the German people into print through the 1800s. Though not intended for children (and often quite violent), these folk tales would become the basis for the modern fairy tale. This article from the world's foremost Grimm specialist, Jack Zipes, uncovers the history of the Brothers Grimm and details how the stories intended to codify German values would eventually spread across the globe.

Mark Zuckerberg has named all three of his daughters after Roman emperors

Zuckerberg studied Latin in high school and became interested in ancient Rome. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, went to Rome on their honeymoon. His daughters—August, Maxima, and Aurelia—are all named after Roman emperors.

Lupus, an autoimmune disease with varied symptoms, was named for wolf bite-like lesions

The 13th-century physician behind the name (lupus is Latin for wolf) named it after a patient he saw who had facial lesions that looked to him like a wolf's bite. Other common symptoms of the disease include extreme fatigue, painful and swollen joints, fevers, and light sensitivity.

JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis met at Oxford and bonded over Norse mythology

The “Lord of the Rings” mastermind and “The Lion, Witch, and the Wardrobe” author were colleagues at Oxford University and shared an appreciation for Norse mythology, which continues to inform the fantasy genre. They were also a part of the same informal literary group, the Inklings, where they’d discuss one another’s works-in-progress.

Dreams have long been used for religious and political power

Classic literature and mythology attests to the crucial role dreams play in narratives, from the Virgin Birth to the prophetic visions of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The heightened state of dreaming and its analog, hallucinating, have long held special power over the collective imagination.

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

An 18th-century woman tricked doctors into believing she gave birth to rabbits

Mary Toft was a poor servant in Surrey who reportedly sought fame and money by perpetuating the story of her "monstrous birth." After having a miscarriage a month earlier, Toft claimed to still be pregnant and called obstetrician John Howard to witness her give birth to animal parts, including a cat without a liver, a rabbit’s head, the legs of a cat, and nine dead baby rabbits. Eventually, after fooling the court physicians of King George I, she confessed to orchestrating the births.

Dickens' pet inspired Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'

Dickens had a pet raven named Grip and made him a character in the novel "Barnaby Rudge: a Tale of the Riots of Eighty." Poe reviewed the work and suggested the raven should play a bigger role. A few years later, he fixed the problem himself when he wrote his most famous poem, "The Raven." The bird is preserved at the Free Library Philadelphia.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

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

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

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

The use of fungi to detoxify land and water—a process known as mycoremediation—has been used to clean up natural resources affected by the 2025 California wildfires.

Ebola species have historically been named after where they were discovered, stigmatizing residents who live there, including Bundibugyo, in Uganda.

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.