Total Historian(theideasletter.org)
18 points by benbreen | 4 comments
An essay in The Ideas Letter by Nicholas Mulder on historian Marc Bloch, prompted by his induction into the Panthéon in Paris.
#history on Hacker News
51 stories tagged history, newest first.
One of the Greatest Inventions in the History of Human Transport(humantransit.org)
86 points by skadamat | 23 comments
Human Transit blog post by Jarrett Walker on Blaise Pascal's 1662 Paris carriage network, the first fixed-route public transport, and its network design principles.
Bonanza of new dates rewrites the history of the Inca(science.org)
24 points by pseudolus | 5 comments
Science news feature by Lizzie Wade on how new radiocarbon dates show the Inca Empire lasted longer than thought and faced more resistance.
Lant – The Forgotten Resource(sites.udel.edu)
19 points by kreyenborgi | 3 comments
A blog post from the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture's Material Matters site about lant, stale urine historically used as an industrial resource.
SIGSALY: Churchill's top secret hotline to the president(iwm.org.uk)
127 points by stmw | 44 comments
Imperial War Museums article on Churchill's top secret SIGSALY encrypted telephone hotline to the US President from the Churchill War Rooms.
A Tudor life in the time of plague (2020)(historytoday.com)
43 points by pepys | 3 comments
History Today article on how plague shaped Tudor life, starting with the christening of Henry VIII's heir Edward VI.
Show HN: Timur's Chess – A 14th century chess variant with giraffes(timurschess.com)
13 points by LarsDu88 | 3 comments
A web game recreating Timur's (Tamerlane) 14th-century chess variant, with play against an AI engine, local two-player, and online multiplayer modes.
Pointing AI at archives found a forgotten meteorite, lost rhinos, and more(jessewaites.com)
173 points by piratebroadcast | 88 comments
Blog post describing how the author used AI to search 400 years of historical records, surfacing a forgotten meteorite report, lost rhinos, and unrecorded volcanic eruptions.
CIA Conspired with the Right on the Eve of Mexico's '68 Massacre(mexicosolidarity.com)
25 points by robtherobber | 0 comments
Mexico Solidarity Media article on CIA collaboration with Mexican right-wing forces ahead of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre of students.
Why were Victorian elites so effective?(worksinprogress.co)
199 points by karakoram | 331 comments
Works in Progress essay examining the habits and traits that made Victorian-era British elites so effective, framed as 'seven vices'.
"The only intuitive interface is the nipple" (2012)(greenend.org.uk)
29 points by ibobev | 31 comments
A personal essay tracing the origin of the quote "the only intuitive interface is the nipple" through 1990s Usenet posts attributed to Bruce Ediger and others.
Why the Bronze Age Collapsed(worksinprogress.news)
3 points by measurablefunc | 2 comments
A Works in Progress essay examining the causes of the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mediterranean civilizations.
cp: -r or -R?(movq.de)
115 points by zdw | 104 comments
Blog post examining whether cp's -r and -R options ever differed, tracing GNU coreutils source history back to 1992.
Who wrote Elizabeth I's most scathing letters?(smithsonianmag.com)
43 points by benbreen | 21 comments
Smithsonian magazine article on research suggesting Elizabeth I's male secretaries revised and intensified emotion in her letters to figures like Mary, Queen of Scots.
The Evolution of Vending Machines(saturdayeveningpost.com)
33 points by ohjeez | 11 comments
A Saturday Evening Post article on the history of vending machines, from ancient holy water dispensers to modern frozen meal machines.
Reading’s Bayeux Tapestry(diamondgeezer.blogspot.com)
73 points by zeristor | 27 comments
Diamond Geezer blog post about the Bayeux Tapestry going on display at the British Museum, and Reading's Victorian replica of the tapestry.
A searchable library of forgotten public-domain film clips from 1915 onward(movingimagearchive.com)
202 points by momentmaker | 27 comments
Moving Image Archive, a searchable website of public-domain historical film clips such as San Francisco earthquake footage and vintage educational films.
How often do you think about the 1893 World's Fair?(thebirthofacapital.info)
34 points by bryanrasmussen | 16 comments
Newsletter essay from The Birth of a Capital about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, the City Beautiful movement, and its legacy in civic architecture.
The mystery animal on an ancient god's head(signoregalilei.com)
145 points by surprisetalk | 37 comments
A Signore Galilei blog post exploring the identity of a mysterious animal depicted on an ancient god's head.
Women Who Sold Books Door to Door(daily.jstor.org)
57 points by herbertl | 6 comments
JSTOR Daily article examining three nineteenth-century memoirs by women who worked as traveling door-to-door booksellers.
I can't stop thinking about Papua New Guinea(notnottalmud.substack.com)
1004 points by networked | 415 comments
A Substack essay on the not not Talmud blog explaining why the author is fascinated by Papua New Guinea and what they think everyone should know about it.
Late Bronze Age Collapse(acoup.blog)
409 points by dmonay | 287 comments
A blog post on A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry giving a very brief introduction to the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
Lost Images from the 1945 Trinity Nuclear Test Restored(spectrum.ieee.org)
400 points by pseudolus | 118 comments
IEEE Spectrum feature presenting forgotten, restored photographs of the 1945 Trinity atomic bomb test and what they show about the project's scale.
The One Dollar Counterfeiter(amusingplanet.com)
321 points by cainxinth | 132 comments
Amusing Planet article on Emerich Juettner, an elderly New York immigrant who printed crude fake one-dollar bills for nearly a decade before the Secret Service caught him.
East Germany balloon escape(en.wikipedia.org)
688 points by robertvc | 286 comments
Wikipedia article on the 1979 escape of two families from East Germany to West Germany in a homemade hot air balloon.
The past was not that cute(juliawise.net)
393 points by mhb | 483 comments
Blog post by Julia Wise on her Otherwise blog arguing that the past romanticized by cottagecore aesthetics was harsher than its idealized image.
Show HN: Forty.News – Daily news, but on a 40-year delay(forty.news)
396 points by foxbarrington | 153 comments
Forty.News is a site that republishes daily news stories from exactly 40 years ago, generated from newspaper scans via an LLM pipeline.
Interactive World History Atlas Since 3000 BC(geacron.com)
329 points by not_knuth | 135 comments
GeaCron's interactive world history atlas showing political maps and borders by year from 3000 BC to the present.
Paris had a moving sidewalk in 1900, and a Thomas Edison film captured it (2020)(openculture.com)
389 points by rbanffy | 193 comments
Open Culture article about the moving sidewalk at the 1900 Paris Exposition, featuring an embedded Thomas Edison film showing it in operation.
They Thought They Were Free (1955)(press.uchicago.edu)
500 points by nataliste | 298 comments
University of Chicago Press excerpt from Milton Mayer's 1955 book They Thought They Were Free, on how ordinary Germans gradually accepted Nazi rule.
Slow(michaelnotebook.com)
911 points by calvinfo | 215 comments
Michael Nielsen's essay and curated list of projects humans have pursued over exceptionally long periods, asking how to build institutions for slow problems.
Why Archers Didn't Volley Fire(acoup.blog)
450 points by StefanBatory | 253 comments
A blog essay on A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry explaining why historical archers did not use synchronized volley fire as often depicted in films.
Which year: guess which year each photo was taken(whichyr.com)
635 points by trymas | 189 comments
WhichYear is a daily browser game where players view historical photos and guess the year each was taken, from 1850 to 2025.
Photographs of 19th Century Japan(cosmographia.substack.com)
406 points by merothwell | 119 comments
A Substack post presenting historical photographs of Japan from the 19th century; the page failed to load and showed an error message.
Show HN: Time Portal – Get dropped into history, guess where you landed(eggnog.ai)
462 points by samplank2 | 204 comments
Time Portal is a browser game that shows AI-generated video of a historical event and asks players to guess the year and map location.
The Golden Age of Japanese Pencils (2022)(notes.stlartsupply.com)
345 points by apokryptein | 98 comments
A long-form Studio Notes article from St. Louis Art Supply on the history of Japanese pencil manufacturing during its golden age, 1952 to 1967.
3D reconstruction of the capital of the Aztec empire(tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl)
318 points by simonpure | 77 comments
An illustrated web portrait of Tenochtitlan featuring Thomas Kole's 3D reconstruction of the Aztec capital, available in English, Spanish and Nahuatl.
They Thought They Were Free, by Milton Mayer, an Excerpt(press.uchicago.edu)
480 points by thunderbong | 327 comments
University of Chicago Press excerpt from Milton Mayer's book They Thought They Were Free, on how ordinary Germans gradually accepted Nazi rule, 1933-45.
Timemap.org – Interactive Map of History(oldmapsonline.org)
1187 points by agilek | 171 comments
Interactive historical map showing region borders over time with a year slider, plus sections for rulers, people, and battles.
Visualizing World War II(nathangoldwag.wordpress.com)
410 points by gaws | 85 comments
A blog post on Goldwag's Journal on Civilization presenting visualizations and maps of World War II history.
Let's stop counting centuries(dynomight.net)
358 points by surprisetalk | 357 comments
A Dynomight essay arguing that people should stop referring to centuries by ordinal numbers like "18th century" and use clearer date ranges such as "the 1700s" instead.
Why is Chile so long?(unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com)
1351 points by trevin | 391 comments
A Substack article by Tomas Pueyo in Uncharted Territories explaining why Chile is so long and thin, and how its geography shapes the country and its people.
Roman Roads (2017)(sashamaps.net)
460 points by gslin | 146 comments
A page showing the major roads of the ancient Roman Empire drawn in the style of a modern subway map, here as featured in an Open Culture article.
New Aztec Codices Discovered: The Codices of San Andrés Tetepilco(tlacuilolli.com)
353 points by dzdt | 130 comments
A post on the Tlacuilolli blog about Mesoamerican writing describing newly discovered Aztec codices from San Andrés Tetepilco.
On clock faces, 4 is Expressed as IIII, not IV(museum.seiko.co.jp)
333 points by malingo | 225 comments
Seiko Museum Ginza article explaining why clock dials with Roman numerals often show 4 as IIII instead of IV.
How the Devteam Conquered the iPhone(fabiensanglard.net)
324 points by jdkee | 41 comments
Fabien Sanglard's article recounting how the iPhone Dev Team jailbroke and unlocked the original iPhone in the summer of 2007.
A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into encrypted data (2016)(atlasobscura.com)
502 points by whatever3 | 174 comments
Atlas Obscura article from 2016 recounting the history of US government attempts, including by the NSA, to insert backdoors into encryption.
In 1886, the US commissioned watercolor paintings of every known fruit (2019)(openculture.com)
569 points by perihelions | 139 comments
Open Culture article about the USDA's 1886-era commissioned collection of 7,500 watercolor paintings of fruit, now downloadable in high resolution.
When did people stop being drunk all the time?(lefineder.substack.com)
333 points by prismatic | 583 comments
A Substack essay tracing trends in alcohol consumption from the Middle Ages to the modern world and why heavy everyday drinking declined.
Fast(patrickcollison.com)
799 points by valtism | 273 comments
Patrick Collison's list of historical examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious projects, like BankAmericard, the P-80 Shooting Star, and Marinship.
Before he was the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski was a mind-control test subject(washingtonpost.com)
325 points by whitepaint | 246 comments
Washington Post Retropolis article on Ted Kaczynski's participation as a Harvard undergraduate in a psychological stress experiment before becoming the Unabomber.