Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

May 7, 2020

VE Day: The end of World War II in Europe

In the early hours of May 7, 1945, representatives from the Allied high command accepted the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, marking the end of World War II in Europe. The following day, nations around the continent and the world celebrated the victory and the beginning of hard-won peace after...

Jul 1, 2020

Why the British were doomed from the get-go in the American Revolutionary War

Despite the common belief that arrogance and overconfidence played major roles in the loss of the 13 colonies in North America, Britain was actually well aware of how difficult the task of quelling the rebellion would be. There was no hope of conquering America — the territory was too big...

Sep 2, 2020

'Ghost Army' in WWII used inflatable tanks to fool the Nazis and win the war

Today (Sept. 2) marks the 75th anniversary of Word War II's end. During this historic global conflict, hundreds of bloody skirmishes were waged on land, sea and air. But one top-secret U.S. Army battalion fought not with bullets but with stagecraft, using inflatable life-size tanks, phony insignias, soundscapes and fake...

Oct 9, 2020

Why are Armenia and Azerbaijan fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region?

Since the end of September, hundreds of soldiers and civilians are thought to have been killed in a rapidly developing conflict between the rival Caucasus nations of Armenia and Azerbaijan. But why are they in conflict? It turns out that they're fighting over the landlocked, mountainous and kidney shaped Nagorno-Karabakh...

Dec 2, 2020

The Falklands War: Margaret Thatcher's great victory

In 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Argentine President General Leopoldo Galtieri had much in common. Both were fervently anti-Communist, both presided over nations in economic turmoil, and both were ruthless leaders prepared assert their power by going to war. On April 2, 1982, Argentina sent a force of...

Dec 7, 2020

Nazi 'Enigma' machine found at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

Divers trying to remove old fishing nets from the Baltic sea have accidentally stumbled on a Nazi code-making machine. The Enigma machine, as it's called, looks a bit like a typewriter. In fact, the diver who found the device on the ocean floor initially thought that's what the artifact was,...

Jan 27, 2021

Doomsday Clock stands at 100 seconds to midnight

Nuclear weapons, global pandemics, accelerating climate change: Is humanity running out of time? Despite 2020's general awfulness, humanity paused on the path forward to armageddon — at least, according to the Doomsday Clock, a hypothetical timepiece that annually assesses our nearness to utter annihilation. This year, the Doomsday Clock's hands...

Feb 19, 2021

The Battle of Iwo Jima: A gruesome victory for the Allied Forces

The Battle of Iwo Jima took place in 1945 during the final months of World War II. To this day, it is considered one of the most iconic clashes of the so-called Pacific campaign, or Pacific War — when American forces and their allies fought against Imperial Japan across the...

Feb 23, 2021

Raising the flag on Iwo Jima: Here's the story behind that iconic World War II photo

On Feb. 23, 1945, during the Battle of Iwo Jima (Feb. 19 to March 26), six Marines planted the U.S. flag at the summit of Mount Suribachi. The scene was photographed by journalist Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press and his image soon became famous around the world. What many...

Mar 17, 2021

6,000 WWII-era bomb craters mapped in Poland

Toward the end of World War II, Allied planes dropped tens of thousands of bombs on a region of Germany that's now part of Poland, and the devastation is recorded in thousands of craters that remain to this day. Researchers recently mapped and analyzed the deeply scarred landscape for the...

Mar 29, 2021

3 Russian nuclear submarines simultaneously punch through Arctic ice

Three Russian navy submarines punched their way through several feet of sea ice in the Arctic to surface simultaneously within a few hundred feet of each other — one of the first times the tricky naval maneuver has been achieved. A video released by Russia's Ministry of Defence shows the...

May 5, 2021

Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte?

Napoleon Bonaparte rose from a family of minor nobles on the French island of Corsica to become ruler of much of continental Europe. After his 1815 defeat at the Battle of Waterloo (in what is now Belgium), he was forced into exile on the remote island of St. Helena in...

May 18, 2021

Mysterious neurological symptoms are appearing in US diplomats and spies around the world

A mysterious neurological ailment first reported by U.S. personnel in Havana, Cuba, may be more widespread among diplomats, soldiers and spies than previously thought. More than 60 people have reported sudden episodes of nausea, dizziness and headaches from incidents overseas, The New York Times reported. In at least a few...

Jul 4, 2021

When did the Brits and Yanks become allies again after the Revolutionary War?

After the Americans and their allies won the Revolutionary War against the British in 1783, relations between the two nations were abysmal. But today, the United States and the United Kingdom have a special relationship. So when, exactly, did the trans-Atlantic cousins become friends after all that tea was dumped...

Aug 25, 2021

Nazi bomb plot cubes could finally be identified

Scientists have developed a new method to identify and trace the origins of hundreds of uranium cubes that went missing from the Nazi atomic weapons program. More than 600 Heisenberg cubes — vital components of the Nazis' plans to build both a nuclear reactor and an atomic bomb and named...