Iowa became a state today in 1846. And in the 23rd Century, the community of Riverside, Iowa is supposed to see the birth of Captain James T. Kirk from "Star Trek." Here's how the town made itself part of future history.
"Rust: The Art Gallery" is in Manchester, England, and it showcases the artistic effects of rust and deterioration, as curated by artist and longtime rust connoisseur Stephen Raw.
Today in 1978, the New Jersey Nets lost to the Philadelphia 76ers. But part of the game would be replayed the following March, and when it was, several of the players on each team had been traded to the other, and ended up playing in the game!
The new book "The First Ghosts" looks at how humans have been describing and depicting ghosts for thousands of years, including a Babylonian tablet showing a lonely, bearded ghost dude from 1500 B.C.E.
Today in 2001 that a scientific journal published a study with an interesting name, which read in part: “Van Gogh, Chagall and pigeons." There's been a lot of research into how pigeons take in and process visual information, like art, and apparently it's pretty complex.
For National Hispanic Heritage Month, here's the story of the first Hispanic woman in space, Ellen Ochoa, talented and versatile even by astronaut standards.
On Indigenous Peoples Day, here's the story of sculptor Edmonia Lewis. She was born in the 1840s to a Black father and a Chippewa mother, and became the first Native American and Black woman to become an acclaimed sculptor.
Glass is versatile stuff, but fragile. A new project out of McGill University is modeled after the material in mollusk shells and could make glass a lot more durable.
Nike and biotech company NewLight have started developing a shoe made from a polymer derived from carbon, bringing some greenness to an often carbon-intensive industry.
It's a complicated story, but part of what is now eastern Tennessee was once part of western North Carolina - and today in 1784, they tried to break away and form their own state, called Franklin.
