During the 1500s, a group of European missionaries traveled to South America hoping to convert the locals to Christianity. To their horror, they discovered that Amazonian witch doctors actively used a strange potion…a potion which they considered “the work of the devil.” But modern analysis indicates that this mixture, known as Ayahuasca, is far from evil. Could this…
According to the “Clovis First” theory, the Clovis people were the first ones to settle the Americas. Supposedly, they crossed a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska during the last Ice Age, about 13,000 years ago. But recent discoveries are threatening to upend that theory. Was someone else in the Americas prior to the Clovis…
Christopher Columbus, the great explorer who brought the Old and New Worlds together, has been lauded in some quarters as a hero while attacked in others as a villain. Now, climate researchers have weighed into the debate, suggesting that Columbus’s arrival in the Americas may have touched off the Little Ice Age. Was Christopher Columbus a “Climate…
The Inca Empire was the mightiest of its kind in the history of Pre-Columbian America. But how did it get so large? Was it through peaceful trade and political alliances? Or did the Incas expand via bloody conquest? The Rise of the Inca Empire? The Inca Empire originated in the Andes Mountains during the early…
Today is Christopher Columbus Day, an annual celebration of Christopher Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas. For many centuries, Columbus was viewed as a great explorer. More recently, that reputation has come under attack. Was Christopher Columbus a hero? Or was he a villain? Was Christopher Columbus a Hero? Christopher Columbus landed somewhere in the Bahamas…
Although constructed around 1450, the spectacular city of Machu Picchu remained unknown to the outside world until it was discovered by Hiram Bingham in 1911. But did he really discover Machu Picchu? Or did someone else beat him to it? Hiram Bingham’s Expedition to Machu Picchu Situated almost 8,000 feet above sea level, Machu Picchu towers over…