Look through this WWI stretcher bearer's bag

Exploring World War I technology on the battlefield

Industrialization brought massive changes to warfare during the Great War. Newly-invented killing machines begat novel defense mechanisms, which, in turn spurred the development of even deadlier technologies. Nearly every aspect of what we would consider modern warfare debuted on World War I battlefields. Starting with soldiers on horseback carrying lances and ending in poison gas, machine guns, and aerial battles, this gallery shows the first tools of modern warfare.

10 items that could have saved your life in the trenches

Soldiers settled into trenches to defend themselves against shrapnel and bullets, but weapons such as mustard gas crawled along the ground and settled in these low-lying areas. Here are 10 items that could have helped you survive the trenches, according to this article.

Wish you could experience life on the Western Front of WWI?

Virtual reality offers a new perspective on World War I in this nearly 14-minute video. National WWI Museum and Memorial Public Program Specialist James Taub demonstrates the War Remains VR experience side by side with what he sees through the headset. A grim and detailed simulation of trench warfare combined with Taub's observations and insights.

With no textbooks or antibiotics, this WWI surgeon pioneered facial reconstruction

New Zealand surgeon Dr. Harold Gillies made extraordinary advances in the field of reconstructive surgery during World War I and after. This 36-minute NPR podcast interviews historian Lindsey Fitzharris, author of Gillie's biography, The Facemaker, charting how the good doctor reconstructed the faces of numerous soldiers in an age before antibiotics and plastic surgery as we know it today.

An Irish soldier recounts the horrors of fighting in World War I

Jack Campbell, who died in 1992, at age 97, served in the British army during World War I with four of his older brothers. Ireland's last "Old Contemptible," Campbell was gassed during the course of the war, and he shares this and other memories on Ireland's 'The Late Late Show' in this 11-minute video.

A WWI war helmet outperformed modern gear in this study

Your great-grandparent's World War I helmet stuffed in the back of a closet may be just as effective at preventing brain injury from some blasts as a modern-day military helmet. This article further explains a study that pitted WWI and modern helmets against each other.

Penicillin supplies were ready for every wounded soldier on D-Day

By June 1944, Allied stockpiles included 2.3 million doses of penicillin—enough to ensure that every soldier wounded during the pivotal Normandy landings could receive treatment.

What was the typical dinner like for US soldiers during WWII?

This odd little nearly 20-minute video details the very excited narrator's unpacking of a 1943 package of K rations. Such meals would have been consumed by American soldiers during World War II. A fascinating look at what soldiers had to depend on for nourishment, made slightly harder to watch by showing the narrator eating 80-year-old biscuits and more.

Marie Curie developed and trained women to operate mobile X-ray units in World War I

The “petites Curies” allowed medical professionals to identify the severity of wounds without transporting soldiers to medical facilities, expediting treatment and saving lives. The efforts of Curie and other women led to expansions in their rights after the war.

Two-thirds of soldier deaths during the war were due to disease

Roughly two-thirds of all Civil War deaths resulted from disease rather than battle. Poor sanitation, contaminated water, and limited medical knowledge made camps breeding grounds for dysentery, typhoid, and other deadly infections.

Phantom limbs were first documented in the 16th century by a French military surgeon

Ambroise Paré, the military surgeon, observed this phenomenon among soldiers who'd lost limbs, yet the term wasn't formally coined until hundreds of years later, by Silas Weird Mitchell, an American Civil War surgeon.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

See rare Civil War photographs preserved by the National Archives

The Civil War was the first major American conflict documented by a camera, with its images distributed widely to the public. The National Archives' digital collection offers thousands of original Civil War images: portraits, battlefields, hospitals, and everyday life.

When was the first blood transfusion?

In the 1600s, an English doctor transferred the blood from one dog to another via quills. The procedure ended when one of the dogs died. This article details the early days of blood transfusions, which turned toward humans shortly after the 1666 dog experiment and involved putting the blood of a sheep into a human recipient (who reportedly survived the encounter).

Why Men's Legs Were Everything

From codpieces to cotton hose, here's the surprisingly loaded history of men's legs, and why 18th-century Europe couldn't stop staring at them.

Visualizing the global supply chain of medicine

The typical medicine we consume is the end result of a complex global supply chain involving highly specialized compartmentalization. Most medicine was made locally until open trade policies enabled global trade in the 1980s. This visual essay is...

Medieval hospitals existed centuries before modern medicine

Long before modern healthcare, medieval Europe established hospitals that served multiple roles, including religious, social, and medical purposes. This podcast explores how institutions like Siena’s Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala supported urban and rural communities for centuries.

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients.

How to carry more than your own bodyweight

Those images showing a villager carrying an enormous bundle on their back, or balancing a basket of fish on their head—how's that possible? This article dives into the clever tools and habits of strength training some cultures employ as part of their labors, from the springy bamboos used by Vietnamese farmers to the headbound burdens of Himalayan sherpas.

See images of medical cases of firework injuries shared on this 'Instagram for doctors.' (Warning: Graphic content)

A history of treating frostbite

Amid Napoleon's invasion of bitterly cold Russia, soldiers succumbed to frostbite by the thousands. Nineteenth century doctors recommended walking and rubbing snow around the affected area. Fast forward to recent years, and the FDA has approved its first ever drug to treat frostbite. Listen to this podcast to learn the history of this wintry affliction.

The expedition purchased more than 260 separate items to supply their journey

Preparing for two years in the wilderness, Lewis acquired hundreds of supplies, including medicine, food, weapons, and 63 lbs of pigtail tobacco. The total bill was estimated to be around $2,324 (around $60,000 today).

What did Ötzi the Iceman have with him when he died?

Ötzi the Iceman and his belongings were remarkably well-preserved by the mountainous ice that usually covered the area near the Italy-Austria border where he was found. This article by the Italian museum that houses Ötzi's body details some of the...

America's first trained EMT service was established in Pittsburgh's inner city

Watch this documentary about the Freedom House Ambulance Service—the foundation for all paramedic training in America. Founded in 1967, this emergency care force composed of Black men and women from Pittsburgh sought to respond to Pittsburgh's Black community emergencies when the Black community couldn't rely on the police and fire departments to consistently respond to their emergency calls.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Watch the cumbersome, but necessary, precautions healthcare workers must take to care for and protect themselves while caring for Ebola patients

Treating someone with Ebola involves a painstaking process of suiting up (donning) and peeling off (doffing) protective gear. Doctors follow detailed CDC guidelines. Properly suiting up is key to protecting against fluids that transmit Ebola, and correctly removing a suit that could be contaminated with the virus is also critical.

The first identification of Alzheimer's was made in 1906

The first case of Alzheimer's disease dates to the early 20th century when Dr. Alois Alzheimer had 51-year-old Auguste Deter as a patient. Deter struggled with sudden memory issues and aggressive, irrational behavior. After Deter's death, Alzheimer examined her brain and found strange collections of molecular pileups.

Each part of the human body experiences aging differently

With global average life expectancy cresting at 73 years, understanding how the body ages is imperative to effective medical treatment and maintaining a desired quality of life. This 13-minute video dives into how the body and its organs age "from head to toe."

‘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.

Read a deep dive on the 'all-purpose healing' peptide BPC-157.

Experimental hantavirus vaccines and therapies, still under development, have long been funded by the US military.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

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

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

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 Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

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.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.