thought some folks here may be interested in this … I just finished up a book on human evolution, which covers thirty-some hominin species from Sahelanthropus to sapiens. It covers what we know about each of them, what we don’t know, and what the experts are arguing over (and there is a lot of argument … Continue reading A Shameless Plug: My “human evolution” book →

Some of the first shots in World War One were fired not in France but in Africa.. The Khra River Bridge in Togoland, photo from Wiki Commons. In the later half of the 19th century, Germany and Great Britain became global rivals. The British already had an empire which stretched around the globe, from India … Continue reading WW1’s Togoland Campaign →

The discovery of Australopithecus deyiremeda led to some very surprising results. Australopithecus deyiremeda, from Wiki Commons In 2009, researcher Yohanne Haille-Selassie, working at a place called Burtele in the Waranso-Mille region of Ethiopia (not far from where Lucy had been found in Hadar), made a puzzling discovery. In sediments dated to around 3.4 million years, … Continue reading A Closer Look at Australopithecus Deyiremeda →

Ferdinand Magellan is usually given credit for making the first circumnavigation of the globe, but in fact he was killed halfway through the trip and never made it. . Juan Sebastian Elcano, photo from Wiki Commons When the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan set sail for the Far East in September 1519, he had only the … Continue reading The First Trip Around the World →

The submarine USS Croaker was constructed during the Second World War, but some of its most interesting work came during the Cold War. USS Croaker in 1944 The Gato-class was a very successful design, especially in the Pacific. During the Second World War, the Navy submarine fleet, consisting mostly of 77 Gato subs, were credited … Continue reading Museum Ship USS Croaker →