Lists and Stories

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  The 40th Anniversary of Star Wars Star Wars, first released on May 25, 1977, was one of the defining motion pictures in cinema history, and, for many people who lived during the era of bewilderment and cynicism following U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon’s resignation and the end of the Vietnam War, seeing the film for the first time became...
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  The 50th Anniversary of the Watts Riots of 1965 Fifty years ago, on August 11, 1965, a heated encounter between a white California Highway Patrol officer and an African American motorist whom he had pulled over for suspicion of driving while intoxicated sparked an angry response from onlookers. It ignited six days of rage—including violent...
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  The 6 Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee; “People of the Longhouse”) Confederacy of upper New York state and southeastern Canada is often characterized as one of the world’s oldest participatory democracies. The confederacy’s constitution, the Great Law of Peace (Gayanesshagowa), is believed to have been a...
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  The 600th Anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt A series of disputes—notably the question of the legitimate succession to the French crown—launched the Hundred Years’ War between England and France in 1337. One of the conflict’s most-notable battles was on the muddy ground at Agincourt, France, on October 25, 1415. Copiously armed with longbows...
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  The 68th Annual Cannes Film Festival The 2015 Festival de Cannes, one of the world’s oldest and best-known film festivals, ran from May 13 to 24 in Cannes, France. Heading the jury that selected the festival’s top prize (the Palme d’Or) were the idiosyncratic American directors Joel and Ethan Coen. French director Jacques Audiard’s...
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  The 7 Best Pinecones (Really!) Growing up in California, I had a lot of exposure to some really amazing natural areas. Always a lover of plants, I had a pinecone collection as a kid and took pride in knowing facts about the trees from which they came. Here’s a list of some of my favorites. They are cooler than you think. I...
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  What Was the Armenian Genocide? From 1915 to 1916 hundreds of thousands of Armenians were deported from their homeland in the eastern Ottoman Empire by the Young Turk government, which viewed them as a possible ally of Russia in World War I. Many were murdered or died from disease or starvation; conservative estimates of the...
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  The Assassination of Leon Trotsky The exiled communist theorist and revolutionary Leon Trotsky was attacked by a Soviet agent in Coyoacán, Mexico, on August 20, 1940, and died of his injuries the following day. Trotsky, one of the chief architects of the Russian Revolution, had at one time been regarded as the most likely successor...
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  The Attack on Pearl Harbor On December 7, 1941, more than 2,300 U.S. military personnel were killed, more than 1,100 were wounded, and eight battleships were damaged or destroyed when the American naval base at Pearl Harbor was, in the words of U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, “suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval...
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  The Axial Age: 5 Fast Facts We may conceive of ourselves as “modern” or even “postmodern” and highlight ways in which our lives today are radically different from those of our ancestors. We may embrace technology and integrate it into daily life. We may point to new attitudes about religion or stress spirituality and...
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  The Barber of Seville Turns 200 On February 20, 1816, one of the best-loved and most-performed comic operas of all time, Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, had its premiere at the Teatro Argentina in Rome. The libretto is based on the play Le Barbier de Séville (1775) by Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, which is the...
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  The Birth of Beatlemania: Observing a Fifty-Year (1963–2013) Milestone This essay was originally published in the Britannica Book of the Year for 2013. It was subsequently updated. The year 2013 marked the 50th anniversary of the year that the Beatles emerged from being the object of affection of a few hundred teenagers in a provincial English town to becoming a...
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  What Happened to Einstein’s Brain? Albert Einstein, touted as one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century, died April 18, 1955, as a result of a fatal aneurysm, in Princeton, New Jersey. Despite Einstein’s wishes to have his entire body cremated, the doctor who conducted his autopsy, Thomas Harvey, had other plans—he kept the...
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  The Canadian Football League: 10 Claims to Fame The Canadian Football League (CFL) did not officially come into being until 1958, but Canadian teams have battled annually for the Grey Cup, which became the championship trophy of Canadian professional football, for more than a century—sometimes in snow, famously in fog, and always in a festive...
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  The Controversy over Female Genital Cutting Female genital cutting (FGC) is a procedure that is performed on the genital tissue of a female ranging in age from infancy to adulthood. It can be as little as a small nick or as much as the removal of all the tissue. The practice is viewed by some as a traditional rite of passage and by others as...
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  The Craziest Scam? Gregor MacGregor Creates His Own Country In 1822 and 1823 hundreds of people departed England and Scotland on voyages to the promising new country of Poyais. Clutching Poyaisian currency and filled with hope for a prosperous future, the would-be settlers were shocked to find that the bustling harbor, elegant capital city, and readily...
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  Do Carnivorous Plants Eat Their Prey? The ominous-looking Venus flytrap is one of the most famous carnivorous plants, and its snapping traps have fascinated many a curious child (or adult). But the Venus flytrap is just one member of a remarkable group. There are more than 600 carnivorous plant species, and the ability to catch and...
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  The Disappearance of Amelia Earhart Amelia Earhart is one of history’s most prominent figures in aviation, having inspired numerous movies, books, and plays. Born in 1897 in Kansas, Earhart rose to fame because of her trailblazing accomplishments as a female aviator. At the time, being both a woman and a pilot meant being met with...
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  The Dope on Dope: 8 Facts About Marijuana With the growing movement to legalize marijuana in the United States, the drug is in the news more than ever before. But how much do you really know about it? Here we offer the 411 on 420. list, marijuana, drug, THC, Cannabis, drugs, getting high, 420, bongs, blunts, racism, music, moviesMarijuana...
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  The Dramatic Life of Vincent van Gogh In honor of his birthday, Britannica explores the life of Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh, who sold only one painting during his lifetime but whose work later sold for millions. spotlight, art, artists, painter, painting, vincent van...