Connecting the dots across time
When perfectly preserved 4,000-year-old mummies with fair hair and tartan clothing emerged from China's Taklamakan Desert, scholars spent decades debating whether Europeans had settled Bronze Age Asia. A stunning 2021…
Around 552 CE, two monks smuggled silkworm eggs out of Asia hidden inside bamboo canes, delivering them to Emperor Justinian in Constantinople and shattering China's millennium-long silk monopoly. This audacious…
Decades before Columbus set sail, Ming China's admiral Zheng He commanded colossal nine-masted treasure ships and crews of 27,000 across the Indian Ocean, reaching East Africa and bringing giraffes home…
How did Shang Dynasty kings make crucial decisions? They turned to the spirit world through scapulimancy, a fascinating ritual of heating bones and shells to divine the future. These "oracle…
Before a unified Korea existed, the peninsula was a battleground for three rival kingdoms: Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla. For over 700 years, their epic struggle for dominance through ruthless warfare…
Stretching over a thousand miles, China's Grand Canal was far more than an engineering marvel; it was the imperial artery that fueled dynasties for centuries. Discover how this man-made river…
Long before Genghis Khan’s hordes thundered across the plains, another great power dominated the Eurasian steppe: the Göktürks. As the first to bear the name "Türk", they forged a vast…
In the culturally rich city of Kyoto, a quiet mound known as the Mimizuka, or 'Ear Mound', conceals a horrifying secret. It holds the severed noses and ears of tens…
The "well-field" system of ancient China paints a picture of perfect, egalitarian harmony with its nine-square grid of communal farming. But was this idyllic model a historical reality, or was…
Learn about the pivotal Taika Reforms of 645 CE, a set of doctrines that radically reshaped Japan's government and society. Sparked by a dramatic court assassination, this sweeping revolution, inspired…
Faced with the challenge of ruling both nomadic warriors and settled farmers, the Khitan people of the Liao Dynasty devised a brilliant political solution. Their "dual administration" created two parallel…
Over two millennia ago, the Han Dynasty held a fiery debate over state control of the economy. The arguments between the pragmatic Modernists and the moralistic Confucians over salt and…
Long before Singapore, a powerful but enigmatic empire named Srivijaya controlled the world's most critical maritime choke point. Based in Sumatra, it built a thalassocracy on a simple, brilliant model:…
Long before the Mongols, the Xiongnu forged a vast steppe empire that became the primary rival of Han Dynasty China. Discover the nomadic warriors whose fearsome raids prompted the expansion…
For a thousand years, Vietnam wrote with borrowed Chinese characters. In a bold act of cultural self-determination, they created their own script, Chữ Nôm, a complex and beautiful system that…
For centuries, the intricate patterns on our fingertips were merely a curiosity. This is the story of how 19th-century pioneers—from a civil servant in India to a physician in Japan…
Before its brutal annihilation by the Qing Dynasty, the Dzungar Khanate was the last great nomadic empire to shake the foundations of Eurasia. Fusing traditional steppe warfare with modern gunpowder…
Before Confucianism became the celebrated philosophy of China, a far more ruthless school of thought held sway. This was Legalism, the harsh and pragmatic ideology that empowered Qin Shi Huang…
In 751 AD, the Abbasid Caliphate and the Tang Dynasty clashed at the Talas River in a battle that halted China's westward expansion. But its most significant outcome was unintended:…
For over 1,300 years, the most powerful positions in the Chinese government were not inherited by aristocrats but won by scholars. These "scholar-officials" were a unique class of men who…