Lists and Stories

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  Titanosaurs: 8 of the World’s Biggest Dinosaurs In terms of mass, Earth’s largest mammal is the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus). Weighing approximately 136 metric tons (150 tons) and growing to a length of more than 30 meters (98 feet), it is also the largest animal that ever lived. But growing conditions are different in the ocean. What...
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  To All Nations: 8 Fascinating Jesuit Missionaries The Society of Jesus is a Roman Catholic all-male religious order noted for its educational, missionary, and charitable works. Founded in 1534 by St. Ignatius of Loyola and established by papal approval in 1540, the Jesuits were key players in the Catholic Counter-Reformation and later served as...
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  Too Good to Rot? Saints with Incorrupt Bodies If you’ve ever explored a Roman Catholic basilica or cathedral in Europe, it is possible you may have encountered the “incorrupt" body of a saint on display. Throughout the church’s long history, the bodies of many saints have been disinterred, often to move them to new, more prestigious burial...
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  Toronto International Film Festival 2015 The 40th Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) begins on September 10, 2015. The 10-day festival features the full breadth of international cinema, with sections devoted to experimental films, documentaries, shorts, and new works by influential art-house directors. There is even a raucous...
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  Trail of Tears: Routes, Statistics, and Notable Events This infographic provides a map of the principal routes used during the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation during the 1830s of Native American peoples from their lands in the southeastern U.S. to lands reserved for them west of the Mississippi River. Those western lands, then designated as...
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  Transit of Mercury On Monday, May 9, 2016, viewers on Earth can see a transit of Mercury, in which that planet crosses in front of the Sun. Eastern North America, western Europe, and most of South America will be able to see the entire transit. For Africa, eastern Europe, and most of Asia, the Sun sets before the...
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  Trigger Warnings on Campus In a 2015 letter to their student newspaper, four undergraduates at Columbia University called on the administration to officially encourage instructors to issue warnings to potential students of any “triggering and offensive material” in their courses. The letter writers referred to the case of a...
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  Trivia with a Capital “Tea”: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Tea Tea is a beloved drink all over the world. It is one of the most consumed beverages, second only to water. You might drink it hot or cold, with lemon or with sugar, but how much do you actually know about tea? The following are five tea-riffic pieces of trivia to wow your friends with over a nice...
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  Tulip Mania: How a Plant Virus Fueled a Speculative Frenzy Tulips were introduced to Europe from Turkey shortly after 1550. An early recipient of these delicate blooms was the French botanist Carolus Clusius, who was an avid bulb grower and is often attributed with the spread of other spring bulbs, such as hyacinths and irises, across Europe. In the 1590s...
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  Tuskegee Trains the Majority of the United States’ Black Veterinarians Of the country’s 33 accredited veterinary colleges, only one is on a historically Black campus: Tuskegee University College of Veterinary Medicine in Alabama. According to Tuskegee, more than 70 percent of Black veterinarians in the United States received a degree from its veterinary college. But...
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  Types of Landing Craft of World War II Infographic During World War II, Allied forces employed a variety of landing craft—relatively small naval vessels used primarily to deploy troops, equipment, vehicles, and supplies from ship to shore for offensive operations. Such vessels are perhaps best known for their role in the Normandy Invasion (the most...
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  U.K. Votes on “Brexit” from EU When Britons vote in a national referendum on June 23, 2016, on whether to leave the European Union (EU), they will be considering the biggest British departure from Europe since World War II’s Dunkirk evacuation. “Brexit,” the portmanteau coined as shorthand for “British exit,” has been in...
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  Understanding Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion In the early 17th century, German astronomer Johannes Kepler postulated three laws of planetary motion. His laws were based on the work of his forebears—in particular, Nicolaus Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. Copernicus had put forth the theory that the planets travel in a circular path around the Sun....
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  Unidentified Flying Objects: What We Know Everything we know (and only what we know) about the phenomenon of UFOs. Companion, UFO, UFOs, flying saucers, airships, aircraft, spacecraft, aliens, extraterrestrials, extraterrestrial hypothesis, Project Sign, Project Grudge, Project Blue Book, U.S. Air Force, CIA, H.P. Robertson, Robertson...
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  Uninvited Guests: The 7 Worst Parasitic Worms What’s slimy and spineless and looking to parasitize you? (They’re not running for office, if that narrows it down.) Worms! Don’t worry about the fleshy little wrigglers that emerge after it rains…they’re cool with just hanging out in the dirt. But some of their cousins are just itching to turn...
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  Unusual Counting Systems In our everyday lives, we use a counting system in which we count from 1 to 10. That seems only logical because our hands are already in what is called base 10, which means the number 10 serves as the base of our number system. Each place in a number corresponds to a different power of 10. For...
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  U.S. Death Toll During Major Events This infographic shows the death toll caused by major events during the history of the United States, including the COVID-19 pandemic, in the form of a bar chart that compares the magnitude of each number. The attack on Pearl Harbor killed 2,404 Americans. Hurricane Maria in 2017 killed 2,982...
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  U.S. Exits Paris Climate Agreement At a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden on June 1, 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump declared his intention to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump reasoned that adhering to the goals of the accord, which was designed to control and reduce greenhouse gas emissions,...
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  Veterans Day The holiday that became Veterans Day was first observed as Armistice Day in 1919. The cease-fire that marked the end of World War I took effect at 11:00 AM on November 11, 1918, and U.S. Pres. Woodrow Wilson declared that the first anniversary of that event should be marked with a day of reflection...
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  Vietnam War Timeline The Vietnam War was one of the most complex and controversial conflicts of the 20th century. Here’s a timeline of some of its key moments. list, Vietnam War, My Lai, Gulf of Tonkin, Westmoreland, Lyndon B. Johnson, Viet Cong, fall of Saigon, North Vietnam, South Vietnam Viet Minh troops under Gen....