The stories everyone thinks they know, and the stranger truths underneath.

Gods, the origins of everyday things, and the wonders of the ancient and modern world, dug back to their oldest sources.

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What Was Loki the God Of? The Sources Give None

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Myth or Documented Fact?

Guess whether a claim from our own coverage is real, then read the sourced verdict and the full story behind it.

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Mythology

All of mythology

Gods, heroes, and monsters, told the way the oldest sources actually tell them.

The Snaptun Stone, a curved hearth stone carved with a bearded face whose lips are stitched shut, in a museum case.

What Was Loki the God Of? The Sources Give None

Was Loki the god of mischief or of fire? The Old Norse sources name no domain for him, and scholars find no sign of a cult. Here is where each popular title came from.

Rubens's painting of Prometheus chained to a rock while a large eagle tears at his body.

Why Did Zeus Punish Prometheus? Two Answers

Why did Zeus punish Prometheus? Hesiod blames a rigged sacrifice, Aeschylus blames the gift of fire. Here is what each ancient source says and where they split.

Marble statue of Demeter from the Sanctuary of Demeter at Knidos, 350-330 BC, now in the British Museum.

Demeter's Symbol: The Wheat Is Hers, the Cornucopia Isn't

Demeter's grain sheaf and torch go back to Hesiod and the Homeric Hymn. Her signature cornucopia began as someone else's myth, and the poppy may not be hers at all.

Invented History

All of invented history

Where everyday things really come from, against the story printed on the box.

A page from Alexander Graham Bell's laboratory notebook dated March 9, 1876, recording handwritten notes and a diagram from an early telephone test using a liquid transmitter.

Who Invented the Telephone? Bell Beat a Rival by Hours

Bell's telephone patent beat a rival's filing by hours in 1876, survived a bribery scandal and 600 lawsuits, and still wasn't the first working telephone.

The Plum-Pudding in Danger, an 1805 hand-colored etching by James Gillray showing British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and Napoleon seated at a dining table, each carving a slice from a globe-shaped plum pudding with an oversized knife and fork, Napoleon drawn small and stocky beside the tall, thin Pitt.

Invented Traditions Index: How Old Is “Ancient”?

We checked 16 customs and stories treated as centuries-old against their actual paper trail. 13 have a single dateable origin, and none predate 1798.

Benjamin West's circa 1816 painting Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky, depicting Franklin's kite experiment with cherubs assisting.

Who Invented Electricity? No Single Person Ever Did

No one invented electricity. Egyptians named it by 2750 BCE, Franklin's kite tale has no eyewitness, and Faraday's most famous quote turns out to be fake.

Wonders of the World

All of the wonders

The seven wonders and their successors, and what actually stood where.

A 19th-century hand-colored engraving imagining the Hanging Gardens of Babylon as tiered, terraced greenery rising beside the Tower of Babel; this is an artist's later imagining, not a contemporary depiction, and no image of the actual gardens survives.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: A Wonder in the Wrong City?

The Hanging Gardens are the only Wonder whose existence is disputed. No trace has been found in Babylon, and one Oxford scholar argues they stood in Nineveh.

The Great Pyramid of Giza

The last Seven Wonder still standing was built for Pharaoh Khufu around 2560 BCE, and over a century of excavation has not settled exactly how it was raised.

The Christ the Redeemer statue standing atop Corcovado mountain with its arms outstretched against a partly cloudy sky, overlooking the forested mountainside below.

Christ the Redeemer: The Wonder UNESCO Never Actually Named

Christ the Redeemer is widely called a UNESCO World Wonder, but UNESCO went out of its way to disown the private vote that gave it that title in 2007.