Among his many achievements, the astronomer Johannes Kepler chalked up one about man's inner world. It was Kepler who realized that man's visual apparatus is so constructed that it can produce only inverted images.

A beautiful mirage called the Fata Morgana appears in the Straits of Messina, between Sicily and Italy. It is an image of a town in the sky, but it seems more like a fairy landscape than a real town. It is believed to be a...Read More

Yes. Under the Julian calendar, February had 29 days and the other months alternated evenly between 30 and 31 days. Because July had 31 days, the month following it was supposed to have 30 days. But that was the month that...Read More

After Helen Keller graduated magna cum laude from Radcliffe College in 1904, she began writing about blindness, a subject taboo in women's magazines because so many cases were related to venereal disease.

Songs with sexual or violent lyrics are not new. Cole Porter's sensual "Love for Sale" was a hit in 1930, but the tune was banned from radio for decades. Blues singers of the 1920s and R&B bands of the 1950s performed ...Read More

An oast is a kiln used for drying hops, malt, or tobacco.