Study up on capital gains basics

Explore how temperatures compare to historical averages in cities worldwide with this interactive global monitor.

Computer scientists first started trying to optimize dating using computers in the 1950s.

Watch Bruce Springsteen's 1985 performance of Woody Guthrie's 'This Land Is Your Land,' which he calls 'the greatest song ever written about America.'

The Berlin Wall physically separated East and West Berlin for nearly three decades, preventing East Germans from fleeing to the West and earning the nickname 'the Iron Curtain.'

The world's largest waterfall is in the ocean and is more than three times the height of Angel Falls, the largest waterfall on land.

Watch an animated visualization of how the Large Hadron Collider works, including how particles are accelerated through a series of machines and how collision data is collected and distributed worldwide.

On planets in systems with two stars, such as the fictional Tatooine from 'Star Wars,' observers would see overlapping rainbows and double rainbows.

A dog's nose can be up to 100,000 times more sensitive than a human's, and each possesses a secondary organ for smelling, which helps learn about other dogs when they sniff each other's butts.

If the moon were less than one-twelfth its current distance from Earth, the planet's tidal forces would overcome the moon's internal gravity, tearing it apart and forming a ring of debris.

The collapse of gas bubbles in the joint synovial fluid causes 'cracking' knuckles.

On a cruise ship, the average person uses about 50 gallons of water a day, which is treated by bacteria and onboard filtration systems, then stored until the ship can legally discharge the wastewater.

Watch Dr. Laurence Peter explain his 'Peter Principle,' which states that people are promoted to their level of incompetence and explains why bosses aren't always good at their jobs.

Semaglutides, which belong to a class of drugs called GLP-1s, are prescribed for weight loss in combination with diet and exercise because they trigger the release of the appetite-suppressing hormone incretin.

The average banana produces one positron—the antimatter counterpart to an electron—every 75 minutes as its trace amounts of radioactive potassium decay.

Watch a two-year time-lapse of a pinecone seed transforming into a pine tree.

Explore a collection of famous literary maps, including original images from 'Treasure Island,' 'The Swiss Family Robinson, ' and 'Walden.'

Explore an interactive forecast of the future of the universe, from the return of Halley's Comet to the last light in the cosmos.

Abraham Lincoln had to sneak into Washington, DC, in disguise for his 1861 inauguration after a detective uncovered a plot to assassinate him in Baltimore.

Explore 3D models of some of the most dangerous viruses, allowing us to understand these and other pathogens in new ways.

This interactive website features nearly 40,000 photos from Wikipedia for you to create visual mosaics with.

Explore Lewis and Clark's 8,000-mile journey in Google Earth.

Although the moon passes between the sun and Earth each month, its orbit is tilted by five degrees, preventing Earth from experiencing a solar eclipse each month.

Play the role of a student as you try to navigate college and remain debt-free.

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.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is "Afghan Girl" by Steve McCurry. Sharbat Gula, the subject of the photo, was not credited until 2002 for her role in the famous National Geographic cover, and continued to live in poverty after the photo was taken.

Cats have a mutation that prevents them from tasting sweetness, and goldfish rank among the world's supertasters.

Robert Smalls escaped slavery by piloting a stolen Confederate ship to freedom, then became an influential Black political leader during Reconstruction.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

'Golden blood' is the rarest blood type in the world—fewer than 50 people are known to have it.

The tallest tsunami in recorded history was 524 meters (1,720 feet) high—taller than the Empire State Building—and occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in 1958 after an earthquake dislodged a rockface into the water.

'Tulip mania,' the 1630s Dutch craze where rare bulbs were briefly traded like luxury assets, may have been the first financial bubble—and it still shapes markets today.

The final shots of the Civil War were fired in the Arctic over 2 months after the South's surrender.

The animatronic shark from 'Jaws' was a complex machine called 'Bruce.'

Light takes approximately eight minutes to travel from the sun's surface to Earth, but it takes thousands of years to reach the star's surface from its core—a distance more than 200 times shorter.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Explore (and debunk) the world's most contagious misconceptions—from the 5-second rule to sugar rushes—on this interactive site. Click on each misconception for further evidence.

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

Watch the many different civilizations around the Mediterranean shift power from the year 2500 BCE to 0 BCE in this animated map.

Explore an interactive timeline of Earth's 4.5-billion-year history to visualize shifting landmasses and oceans, view the locations of significant asteroid impacts, and learn about major geological and biological events.

Examine this captivating animation 'building' a human—illustrating the roughly 40 weeks of fetal development.

Check out some of the best books that can be read in a single day, with titles from Han Kang, Denis Johnson, Muriel Spark, and more.