He also influenced contemporary artist George Condo

George Lucas used Joseph Campbell's 'hero's journey,' a narrative structure that encompasses the common characteristics of multiple cultures' mythologies, to revise 'Star Wars.'

Watch footage from the moments the Titanic wreck was discovered by a joint US-French research team in 1985.

Explore the 2025 Uber Lost & Found Index to find out the weirdest items that passengers left behind in Ubers last year, from ten live lobsters to a mannequin head with human hair.

Between 2002 and 2012, at least 12 people were killed in the Philippines in incidents related to off-key karaoke singing of Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.'

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

Emanuel Leutze's painting 'Washington Crossing the Delaware' is one of the defining images of the Revolutionary War.

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.

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.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

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.'

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

Rapid intensification is the increase in a hurricane's sustained wind speed by at least 35 miles per hour within 24 hours, which can strengthen it by up to two categories.

In 1962, the US detonated a nuclear weapon in space, which produced an electromagnetic pulse that disabled three low Earth orbit satellites and damaged electrical equipment in Hawaii.

You may be better at spotting a lie when listening to a speaker's voice inflections rather than watching for facial and body cues.

Pregnancy makes someone more attractive to the mosquito species that transmits malaria.

There are up to 100 trillion microbes in the gut, and maintaining the relative balance in this ecosystem is important for our health.

Stonehenge was built using giant wooden rollers and precisely carved tongue-and-groove joints to lock the stones in place.

This short animation shows how human beings managed to lug 30-ton stones over miles of prehistoric English countryside and stand them up The Stone Age engineering involved using giant wooden rollers and carving precisely interlocking tongue-and-groove joints to hold the heavy stones in place.

Watch President John F. Kennedy's speech on going to the moon

Relax to a livestream of brown bears chilling in Katmai National Park in Alaska.

Researchers generally group gut bacteria into six different categories, with varying amounts of these microbes residing in different parts of the digestive tract.

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

Humans tend to imagine aliens as humanlike, but that's probably unlikely. Three different hypothetical planets show how aliens' bodies could take many forms.

Fecal transplants can help treat infections by transplanting healthy gut bacteria from a donor into a patient's gastrointestinal tract using samples of human waste, which are turned into a liquid mixture and often delivered via a colonoscopy procedure.

The Aztec Empire ruled over 80,000 square miles of central Mexico for nearly a century—until a small band of Spanish conquistadors brought it down in 1521.

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

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

Experience a century of America's healthcare advances with this medical visualization, tracing a sampling of healthcare innovations from head to toe.

Simulations suggest that a paper airplane launched from the International Space Station would maintain its orientation and gradually descend for 3.5 days before chaotically tumbling down and burning up.

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

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

If a source of music traveled past someone at twice the speed of sound, assuming sufficiently sensitive hearing and powerful equipment, they would hear the music backward.

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.

Watch 4-plus decades of Pixar's opening logos.

Washing dishware before putting it in a dishwasher may reduce the appliance's effectiveness because it dynamically adjusts wash time and temperature based on a sensor that detects dirtiness.

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

Explore a detailed map of Odysseus' fictional journey from 'The Odyssey.'

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.

Give your memories a place to live and explore the personal stories left by strangers, tied to specific locations, in this interactive map of the world.

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.

See a breakdown of how some of the most common food items are traded across the globe, including the key trade relationships for each item.