See the early concept art for 'Star Wars'

The original 'Star Wars' was quietly showcased at Comic‑Con in 1976 to little fanfare

In a bold pre‑release move on July 22, 1976, Lucasfilm set up an eight-foot booth and slideshow at San Diego Comic‑Con, introducing the then‑titled "The Star Wars"—with no premiere buzz, just intrigue among a few hundred early fans.

The 'Star Wars' series begins where George Lucas believed the story was most accessible

The director originally conceived 'Star Wars' as a single long story, but recognized it was far too big for a single movie, so he split each act into its own film. He began with the fourth act, which would later be renamed "A New Hope."

Legendary director Brian De Palma hated his first viewing of 'Star Wars'

The "Carrie" and "Mission: Impossible" director was invited by his friend George Lucas to watch an early cut of the first "Star Wars," a draft that lacked many of the special effects that would be added later. De Palma was highly critical, telling Lucas that "The Force" was an awful name for the spiritual power Luke Skywalker eventually comes to embrace.

How George Lucas used Joseph Campbell's 'hero's journey' to revise 'Star Wars'

Lucas was struggling with an unwieldy early draft of "Star Wars" when he discovered the literary theorist Campbell's "The Hero With a Thousand Faces," which compared the narrative journeys of heroes across cultures, suggesting they generally followed the same path. Lucas used the concept to revise "Star Wars" and credited Campbell's book with clarifying the story.

'American Graffiti' gave George Lucas the credibility to have 'Star Wars' produced

The idea for "Star Wars" was initially rejected by studios. It wasn't until "American Graffiti," Lucas' 1973 nostalgic comedy, became an unexpected hit that anyone was willing to produce what Lucas called his "space film."

Read a 1971 magazine feature on Lucas' debut film, the sci-fi 'THX 1138'

Almost a decade before the arrival of "Star Wars," George Lucas directed "THX 1138," a grim science fiction film about a dystopian future in the vein of George Orwell's "1984." This article from the October 1971 issue of American Cinematographer features a young George Lucas, who developed the film from a short he worked on while a student at the University of Southern California just a few years earlier.

How 'Star Wars' turned toys into collectibles

George Lucas licensed the "Star Wars" franchise to Kenner Products, which created small figurines that became wildly popular. By the 1977 Christmas season, they were facing a shortage and sold mail-in rainchecks, effectively allowing customers to purchase figures that weren't yet produced. The strategy worked, portraying the toys as valuable collectibles whose price would appreciate.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

James Earl Jones didn't become the voice of Darth Vader until after shooting had concluded

The archvillain was originally voiced by David Prowse, who played him on screen. But Prowse's Scottish accent, higher-pitched voice, and muffled delivery (due to the character's mask) made for an underwhelming performance. Jones was brought in during postproduction to do voiceover, recording all the dialogue in under three hours.

Some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters were designed by Drew Struzan

The artist is responsible for iconic posters advertising "Indiana Jones," "Hook," "The Goonies," and more. His distinctive style—sometimes painted by hand, sometimes drawn with an airbrush—defined the era of the family-friendly family blockbuster.

Explore a gallery of astronomical images curated by the European Space Agency

The collection includes illustrations and images of aurorae, planets, stars, galaxies, stellar nurseries, star clusters, exoplanets, quasars and black holes. Mission photography of astronauts, shuttles and telescopes is also featured.

Riveting artwork from the battlefields during World War I

During World War I, the United States government commissioned eight artists to accompany American Expeditionary Forces to Europe to sketch and document what they saw. Drawing tanks, soldiers, shattered villages, and even German prisoners of war, the artists preserved much of the war as a matter of historical record and to rally support back home.

Machine learning produces photorealistic portraits of Roman emperors.

Toronto-based designer Daniel Voshart used photo editing and machine learning to catch a glimpse of Ancient Rome’s emperors. Employing contemporary descriptions, statues, and paintings, Voshart created lifelike portraits of 54 emperors including Augustus Caesar and Hadrian as well as the more infamous Nero and Caligula, though he stresses they’re only artistic interpretations.

The levels for 'Super Mario Bros.' were designed by hand

Miyamoto and codesigner Takashi Tezuka sketched the world of the game—called Mushroom Kingdom—by hand before handing it off to developers. In the interview below, they show off some of those original illustrations.

Go behind the scenes of the making of the ‘Harry Potter’ films

See a rare look at how the beloved series was brought to life—from set design and visual effects to interviews with cast and crew who shaped the wizarding world on screen.

See a gallery of the early years of CES

This gallery showcases rare photos from the early decades of CES, featuring early personal computers and the first handheld cassette players. See how the world’s biggest tech show began and grew.

He also influenced contemporary artist George Condo

The scale and reach of Picasso and cubism inspired artists and art movements throughout the early to mid-20th century. In fact, his influence can still be seen in artists today. One such artist, George Condo (known for painting the album cover of Kanye West’s “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” pictured below), heavily references Picasso’s visual language, transmuting the legendary artist’s geometric shapes and perspectives for a more contemporary audience.

Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram Studio featured his earliest innovations in animation

Before he founded his iconic film company, Walt Disney was a young animator in Kansas City, Missouri. After scoring a contract to create animated newsreels for local movie theaters, Disney formed Laugh-O-Gram Studio, where he created innovative animated shorts that set the path for his later work.

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

Watch a supercut of the various iterations of SpaceX's Starship rocket

The first version, called Starhopper, was named with the vision of developing rocket stages that could safely land after use, enabling reusability to cut costs. The endeavor was an enormous engineering challenge that required years of testing.

A close look at the figures in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

The ceiling of the chapel—the site at the Vatican in Rome where the Roman Catholic Church selects the pope—was painted between 1508 and 1512. There are dozens of figures depicted on the ceiling and walls pulled from the Bible's Old Testament, with the centerpiece the nine center panels covering the Creation, Noah's Ark, and more. Explore a rich interpretation of the piece in this video.

See renderings of Frank Lloyd Wright’s unmade buildings

Only about half of Frank Lloyd Wright’s over 1,000 designs were actually built. In 2018, the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation commissioned Spanish architect and 3D designer David Romero to make digital models to see what Wright’s unrealized structures would look like.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Dark stars are hypothetical stars that would have existed in the early universe

Primarily composed of visible matter, this celestial object would also contain a significant amount of dark matter that would annihilate with itself, converting its mass into energy. This energy would prevent the star from collapsing under its own gravity and from triggering nuclear fusion until its dark matter fuel was exhausted.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Tove Jansson's illustrations for 'The Hobbit' rankled some of its diehard fans

The Nordic illustrator was asked to contribute illustrations for the 1960 Swedish translation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit." Some fans were critical, though, arguing that the images didn't accurately represent Tolkien's Middle-earth. One of their most convincing pieces of evidence was Jansson's portrayal of Gollum, which she turned into a massive beast. After seeing it, Tolkien realized he needed to specify that the character was "a small, slimy creature."

Imagine thousands of alternate histories of the world

AlternateHistory.com has hosted fan-written "what if" timelines, discussions, and speculative fiction since 2000, making it the largest online gathering of alternate history enthusiasts, with over 10,000 active members and a wiki cataloging hundreds of user-created scenarios. Two highlights to pique your interest: what if the Vikings had settled North America? What would have had to happen for the storyline of George Orwell's "1984" to come true?

A Maya creation myth begins with dwarfs

In the Popol Vuh—a foundational Maya creation text from Guatemala—an early age is marked by dwarves gifted with great vision and intellect. Their hubris led to destruction by flood, after which humans were created from corn with deliberately limited sight.

See images of shipwrecks from WWII's Battle of Midway

Deep-sea explorers have captured detailed images of three iconic shipwrecks from World War II's Battle of Midway, including the first up-close photos of the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi since its sinking in 1942.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

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

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

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

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

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

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

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

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

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

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

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

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

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.'

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 atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.