The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two massive statues of Guatam Buddha carved into the side of a sandstone cliff in central Afghanistan. They were blown up with dynamite in 2001 when the Taliban deemed them as idols. The statues were 115 and 174 feet tall. When asked about the ancient statues, the man who ordered their destruction, […]
Named “Scotty” after the drink used to toast it’s finding (scotch whisky), the skeleton is currently housed at the Royal Saskatchewan museum. The paper announcing it’s discovery was published in March 2019. It was discovered in 1990, at the same time as the previous record holder, Sue, but due to the hardness of the rock around […]
The roots for the experiment extend back to 1961, to a Nobel-prize winning physicist named Eugene Wigner. His thought experiment involved him and another friend both measuring the state of the same particle and obtaining two different but correct results which would mean two realities exist at the same time. A few details which are relevant: […]
Nematodes, also known as roundworms, are microscopic organisms which have adapted to nearly every ecosystem. Two species of nematodes were recently thawed from Siberian permafrost and were found to be moving and eating. The two species were from two different samples of permafrost, one ~32,000 years old and the other ~42,000 years old. Nematodes have two abilities […]
The sacrifice, performed by the ancient Chimú civilization, occurred in 1450 and also included the bodies of close to 200 young llamas. This is the largest known mass child sacrifice, the second being 42 children in an Aztec temple in modern-day Mexico City. The children, ranging in ages from 4-14, were organized according to age, which […]
Other game engines use handcrafted rules written by professional players; AlphaZero was only given the basic rules of the game. By playing millions of games against itself using a process of trial and error, AlphaZero was about to learn the games chess, shogi, and go without the use of opening books and endgame tables. From the DeepMind […]
The Mission Santa Cruz de San Saba is the only mission in Texas ever completely destroyed by Native Americans. It was established in 1757 in an attempt to introduce members of the Apache tribe to Catholocism. The Apache are Native Americans whose traditional enemies were the Comanche people. The Comanche people believed the new Spanish mission had […]
The First Jewish War occurred from 66-73 and was one of three major rebellions by the Jews against the Roman Empire. The Jewish rebels overtook the Roman forces in Masada, a fortress built a century earlier by Herod the Great, and settled there. The siege of Masada began in 72. The Romans built a siege ramp, then a […]
Boudica was a queen of a tribe called the Iceni on the island of Great Britain. Her husband ruled as an ally of Rome but when he died the Roman Empire took his kingdom instead of allowing it to be passed on to his daughters. Boudica chose to revolt. Her forces sacked three Roman settlements, […]
Nero ruled the Roman Empire from 54-68, his time in power best known for it’s tyrrany and extravagance. When a Roman Senator was murdered by one of his slaves the rest of the Roman Senate demanded the execution of his remaining slaves, according to Roman law. The fact that there were four hundred slaves didn’t change […]
