Was JFK’s Assassination a Conspiracy?
The U.S. government has released thousands of CIA documents on the JFK assassination and is still holding some back. Why? This week on Ask History.
AllThatHistory Weekly
At AllThatHistory, we explore the past through archaeology, research, and storytelling. We share discoveries and forgotten histories that reveal how ancient worlds shaped the one we live in today.
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The Volcano That May Have Triggered Egypt’s Plagues
Sometime around 1600 BCE, a volcanic island in the southern Aegean exploded with a force that ranks among the largest eruptions in the last 10,000 years. The island was Thera, now known as Santorini
The Comet That May Have Destroyed a Village and Nearly Triggered an Ice Age
Evidence of a cosmic airburst at one of the world’s oldest farming villages has split scientists for almost twenty years.
Did the Government Cover Up the Roswell UFO Crash?
In the summer of 1947, something came down on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico.
The Viking Who Traveled Further East Than Any Explorer Before Columbus
When people think about Viking exploration, they think west. Leif Erikson reaching North America. The settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows. The longships pushing across the North Atlantic into territory no European had reached before.
The Trojan War Was Real, Just Not the Way Homer Told It
Heinrich Schliemann wanted Troy so badly that he almost destroyed it. When he arrived at Hisarlik in 1871 with a crew of workmen and a head full of Homer, he dug with an enthusiasm that any modern archaeologist would call criminal.
Did NASA Fake the Moon Landing?
July 20, 1969. Neil Armstrong steps onto the Moon. Roughly 600 million people watch it live, about one in five humans alive at the time.
The Ancient Board Game That Predates Chess by 2,000 Years
In 1926, Leonard Woolley was excavating the Royal Cemetery of Ur in what is now southern Iraq when his team uncovered something that had no obvious parallel in the ancient world.
The Viking Myth: How 19th Century Romantics Invented the Horned Helmet and Everything Else
No Viking warrior ever wore a horned helmet in battle. The image was invented by a Swedish illustrator in 1820 and popularized by a Wagner opera costume designer in 1876. The Viking identity most people carry fierce pagan warriors, racially pure northerners is almost entirely a 19th century nationalist construction. The most famous Viking ship burial ever found contains two women. The actual…
What Are the Nazca Lines and Why Were They Made?
Etched into the desert of southern Peru, the Nazca Lines cover around 450 square kilometers and include hundreds of straight lines, geometric shapes, and large animal figures: a hummingbird, a spider, a condor, a monkey with a curled tail.
The Plague of Justinian: The Pandemic That Ended the Ancient World
In 541 CE, bubonic plague arrived at an Egyptian port and spread across the known world. It killed perhaps a quarter of the Byzantine Empire’s population, ended Justinian’s reconquest of Rome, and created the conditions for the Arab conquests a century later. Ancient DNA confirmed the pathogen in 2013. This is the pandemic that built the medieval world.
Saudi Arabia’s Hegra: The Ancient City That Outlasted Every Conqueror Until the Tourists Arrived
Petra’s twin city survived two thousand years almost untouched, and not just because it was remote.
The Real Nazca Lines: What Mainstream Archaeology Won’t Commit To
Everyone has heard of the Nazca Lines. Most people know the alien explanation is nonsense. But the real academic debate three competing theories, none of them fully supported by the evidence is far more interesting than the alternative history crowd wants you to know. The truth is messier, and better.
Who Was Cleopatra?
Most of what people know about Cleopatra came from her enemies.
Stonehenge’s Bones: The Burial Site That Rewrites What We Thought We Knew
New isotope analysis of human remains at Stonehenge shows that many of the people buried there in its earliest phase came from Wales the same place as the bluestones. Some of them may have been descendants of the communities that quarried and transported the stones 300 kilometers to Salisbury Plain. The stones and the dead may have been making the same journey. Stonehenge’s primary function,…
Who Built Gobekli Tepe and Why Did They Bury It?
Gobekli Tepe was built 12,000 years ago at least 1,000 years before the first evidence of agriculture anywhere in the world. It required coordinating hundreds of workers, quarrying 20-ton limestone pillars, and sustaining organized construction over generations. The people who built it were hunter gatherers. Then they deliberately buried the entire site. This is one of archaeology’s most important…
What Happened to the Maya Civilization?
Between 800 and 1000 AD, dozens of major Maya cities in the southern lowlands went quiet.
Italian Teenagers Found a 1,800-Year-Old Roman Villa Under Their School Gym
Rome keeps hiding its history in plain sight, and it keeps taking curious teenagers to find it.
The Lost Library of Alexandria: Did It Actually Burn, or Was That a Myth?
The Library of Alexandria did not burn in one catastrophic fire. Caesar probably destroyed a warehouse, not the library. The Arab general who supposedly burned it centuries later is almost certainly a fabrication. What actually happened a slow institutional decline across 300 years is less dramatic but more disturbing. Most ancient knowledge was not destroyed. It was simply never copied again.
Who Built Stonehenge and Why?
Construction at Stonehenge didn’t happen all at once.