WELSH quarries ransacked by ancient Britons while building Stonehenge 5,000 years ago have been identified by archaeologists. At least two spots in west Wales were mined for enormous stones that still form part of the iconic monument today. Neolithic humans dragged the monoliths more than 180 miles back to the mysterious site's location in Wiltshire. Experts think they used a rudimentary pulley system of logs and ropes to transport the stones, which weigh up to 30 tons each, though they can't know for sure. Archaeologists have long puzzled over Stonehenge's "Bluestones" – monoliths with a chemical makeup that does not fit the profile of any local stone. They think the monument had around 80 originally, but only 43 remain. In 2015, boffins discovered that 42 of the remaining bluestones come from Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, west Wales. And in a new study, a team of British scientists tracked down the exact quarries used by Stonehenge's constructors. Team leader Professor … [Read more...] about Source of Stonehenge’s ancient megaliths finally revealed as experts find EXACT quarry where they were unearthed 5,000 years ago
13 years ago today
How ‘catastrophic ice crash’ 450,000 YEARS ago helped defeat Hitler – and other weird ways Earth changed our history
EARTH'S shape and features have guided our entire history – and even helped defeat Adolf Hitler during WW2, a top professor claims in his new book. Professor Lewis Dartnell told The Sun that London's tube network, Labour voting patterns, New York's tall skyscrapers and even California's existence can all be explained by the natural world beneath our feet. How an ancient cataclysm helped the UK defeat Adolf Hitler “Britain was created as an island about half a million years ago," Dartnell told us, referring to the Anglian glaciation 450,000 years ago, which experts believed created the potential for Britain to split off from continental Europe. “There were two great big ice sheets – Scottish and Scandinavian – that spread down and trapped a great big lake of meltwater in front of them, which started to overspill this land and spill over in Calais. “We used to be connected to Europe by a 30km-wide bridge of land. Water started spilling over … [Read more...] about How ‘catastrophic ice crash’ 450,000 YEARS ago helped defeat Hitler – and other weird ways Earth changed our history
Sheriff: “The will of a 13-year-old girl is what broke this case”
Jayme Closs stunned the world by escaping the horrors of her captivity in northern Wisconsin. Real questions remain, but today the answers began trickling in. "We're still in the active … stages of the investigation. We're still serving the search warrant -- actively. We were there throughout the night. We're finishing that today," said Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald, who led the nearly three-month investigation into the disappearance of Jayme Closs from her Barron County, Wisconsin, home. Under arrest is 21-year-old Jake Thomas Patterson who allegedly murdered Jayme's parents Denise and James Closs and abducted Jayme -- a teenager whose life revolved around ice skating, volleyball and her dog, Molly. "The will of a 13-year-old girl is what broke this case," said Sheriff Fitzgerald told "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant. It was late Thursday afternoon that Jayme escaped from a rural, isolated house in the town of Gordon, 77 miles north of Jayme's home. Authorities believe Jake … [Read more...] about Sheriff: “The will of a 13-year-old girl is what broke this case”
15 years ago today, US troops captured Saddam Hussein. See the photos of the underground hiding place where they found him.
US forces captured Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003. The ousted Iraqi dictator and members of his family fled Baghdad after the US invaded the city in March 2003. US troops captured and arrested Hussein, who had been hiding in an underground hole, without firing a single shot. Hussein was put on trial and eventually executed in December 2006. When the US invaded Baghdad in March 2003, ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his family fled the city, leading to one of the most intense manhunts in history. That manhunt ended on December 13, 2003, when US forces captured and arrested the disheveled former dictator on the outskirts of his hometown in Tikrit, Iraq – without firing a single shot. Members of the Fourth Infantry Division’s First Brigade and US Special Forces captured Hussein on December 13, 2003. Hussein was discovered and arrested in the town of Ad Dwara, on the outskirts of Tikrit. The deposed dictator had been hiding underground, using … [Read more...] about 15 years ago today, US troops captured Saddam Hussein. See the photos of the underground hiding place where they found him.
The Milky Way feasted on a smaller galaxy 10 billion years ago
In its younger days, the Milky Way devoured a smaller galaxy, and stars from the hapless victim still roam the skies today to tell the tale, a new study finds. “This is a major event in the history of the galaxy,” says astronomer Amina Helmi of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. “We’re really starting to probe the ancestors of the Milky Way.” Helmi and her colleagues analyzed the speeds and positions of tens of thousands of stars in the Milky Way within about 33,000 light-years of the sun, using data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope (SN Online: 5/9/18). A group of about 30,000 stars seem to be moving backward, the team reports October 31 in Nature. Instead of rotating around the galactic center with the sun and the rest of the stars in the Milky Way’s bright disk, these stars travel in the opposite direction. “That was the first hint,” Helmi says. “When stars move the opposite way, that … [Read more...] about The Milky Way feasted on a smaller galaxy 10 billion years ago