This year I couldn't narrow it down to 15, so you get 20 recommendations. Call it literary inflation. Also, after last year's list was published, I got an email from a reader who decried that I had so few titles by female authors on my list (fair enough). This time I made a special effort to include a majority of books written by women.
Entrepreneur Frederick Tudor started sending ice from American bodies of water all around the world in the 1800s. It was seen as a luxury to be able to afford and cool or preserve your food and beverages with ice. When Tudor still had leftover ice from his export business, he'd give it to American taverns, who popped chunks of it into drinks. People loved how refreshing those chilly drinks were, and then wanted to buy ice from Tudor - a genius marketing plan.
Welcome to our daily feature Trivia Question of the Day! Which was the last state to lift the ban on alcohol sales on Election Day? Hint: The Election Day ban on alcohol sales started in the mid-1880s and was intended to discourage bribery at the polls (a long-standing U.S. tradition dating back to George Washington), but wasn't lifted until 2014.
The current March to November system that the US follows began in 2007, but the concept of "saving daylight" is much older. Daylight saving time has its roots in train schedules, but it was put into practice in Europe and the United States to save fuel and power during World War I, according to the US Department of Transportation's Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
Bitcoin has gone through many massive transformations since that day 17 years ago. It went from a niche internet collectible, to a decentralized network powering illegal dark net markets, to a mainstream speculative investment for retail, to Wall Street and governments all over the world's favorite new asset class. We have all had front row seats to the first explosive global technological revolution to the internet, and it's been a wild ride.
Once considered a luxury spice, which Henry VI sprinkled through the streets before his coronation in a garish show of wealth, it was typically only used by royalty and upper-class households. Its distribution was controlled by a select group who knew where it was grown. By the 17th century, the Dutch were so vested in controlling its production that they literally started a war to obtain large amounts of nutmeg and store it for their own use.
Foster's designs are constantly shaping how people live, work and play around the world. They've attempted to heal Germany's divided past via the Reichstag building in Berlin, and broken through feats of engineering by way of the Millennium Bridge in London, which ushered in a new era for the South Bank. His dynamic new gateways in Venice employ high-performance, lightweight materials to build new transportation infrastructure for the floating city.
Today in history: On Oct. 12,1968, Mexican track and field athlete Enriqueta Basilio became the first woman to light the Olympic flame at the opening ceremonies of the Mexico City Summer Games. Also on this date: In 1492, Christopher Columbus's first expedition made landfall on what is now San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. In 1870, General Robert E. Lee, former overall commander of the Confederate States Army in the Civil War, died in Lexington, Virginia, at age 63.
Berlin's history has been difficult, to say the least. And yet today, the German capital's intoxicating mix of grit, glamour, and anything-goes expression born from historical repression has made it one of the most dynamic cities on earth. Where else can you saunter through Prussian palaces, venture into Nazi-era bunkers, tour the world's longest outdoor art gallery, and lose yourself in Europe's most famous techno temple? (And that's just day one.) Yes, you'll come across remnants of the city's past
When I was 16 years old, I sat in a crowded assembly hall on a wobbly plastic chair, and I listened to Mr. Smith tell me why I should study history. All of the teachers had to do it. "Sell your subject," the headmaster had said. "Make the kids want to pick it." Some teachers did so with the grudging monotone of the forced and underpaid employee. Some did it with the exhausting energy of a fanatic.
In 1857, the S.S. Central America (also known as the Ship of Gold) sank off the coast of South Carolina after sailing into a hurricane in one of the worst maritime disasters in American history; 425 people were killed and thousands of pounds of gold sank with the ship to the bottom of the ocean. In 1940, the Lascaux cave paintings, estimated to be 17,000 years old, were discovered in southwestern France.
Chance to see both the English and Spanish versions of the original 1849 California Constitution, displayed in partnership with the California State Archives Access to all current exhibitions at the California Museum, including a limited-time display of historic documents and artifacts highlighting select signers of the 1849 Constitution, courtesy of the California State Archives and California State Library A presentation by Professor Damien Bacich: "California's Spanish-Mexican Roots: Life Before and After Statehood"
Today is Wednesday, Aug. 27, the 239th day of 2025. There are 126 days left in the year. Today in history: On Aug. 27, 2011, Hurricane Irene made landfall in the United States; the storm would be responsible for 49 total deaths and more than $14 billion in damage. Also on this date: In 1883, the island volcano Krakatoa erupted with a series of cataclysmic explosions.
Chopsticks date back millennia, with the earliest examples in China appearing as early as 1200 B.C. Originally used as cooking tools for stirring pots and retrieving food from hot oil, they gradually made their way to the dining table. By around 400 A.D., chopsticks were more common as eating utensils, and within another century, they had spread widely throughout East Asia, from Vietnam to Japan.
"Maxwell's wasn't just a club-it was a community. It was a proving ground. It was where music scenes collided, friendships were forged, and bands found both their audience and their soul."
On August 17, 1915, a mob in Cobb County, Georgia, lynched Jewish businessman Leo Frank, 31, whose death sentence for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan had been commuted to life imprisonment.
Historians and researchers who have seen early drafts say the new texts gloss over these events, and also appear to downplay and omit major human rights violations, including the killings of up to half a million suspected communists from 1965-6, and mass rapes targeting ethnic Chinese during the riots that led to the fall of Suharto in 1998.
"When Paul Morphy plays seven games of chess at once and blindfold, when young Colburn gives impromptu solution to a mathematical problem involving fifty-six figures, we are struck with hopeless wonder," J. Brownlee Brown wrote in 1864.
