Discover the forgotten people behind history’s most famous victories, inventions, discoveries, and breakthroughs, from Alfred Russel Wallace and Rosalind Franklin to Ub Iwerks, Frank Worsley, and Branch Rickey across history.
On a map, Antarctica reads like the final frontier, a place where the rules of the natural world work a little differently. The idea that an entire continent covered in ice qualifies as a desert doesn’t match how we use the word in everyday life. Most people imagine deserts as sun-bleached dunes and shimmering heat, not a frozen expanse stretching farther than the eye can measure. Yet scientists have a different definition, and once you hear it, the icy area starts to make more sense. It helps to think less about sand and more about scarcity, because dryness defines a desert far more than temperature ever could.
When Ferdinand Magellan was cut down by natives in the Philippines, the lives of his ships and crew hung in the balance. Juan Sebastian Elcano stepped forward to take comman of the expedition.
Over the centuries, European explorers have done some undoubtedly wild (and disgraceful) things to survive and profit.
Ever wonder why we've only visited Pluto once? Space seems empty, but getting there involves solving puzzles that would make Einstein scratch his head. One slight miscalculation early on becomes a mission-ending disaster years later.
Sir Francis Drake took the Golden Hind west from England in search of treasure—but he never could have expected what awaited him beyond the horizon.
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