Middle

Before the Little Rock Nine, before Rosa Parks, before Martin Luther King Jr. and his March on Washington, there was Barbara Rose Johns, a teenager who used nonviolent civil disobedience to draw attention to her cause. In 1951, witnessing the unfair conditions in her racially segregated high school, Barbara Johns led a walkout—the first public protest of its kind demanding racial equality in the U.S.—jumpstarting the American civil rights movement.

In 2008, Professor Lee Berger--with the help of his curious 9-year-old son--discovered two remarkably well preserved, two-million-year-old fossils of an adult female and young male, known as Australopithecus sediba; a previously unknown species of ape-like creatures that may have been a direct ancestor of modern humans. This discovery of has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history. The fossils reveal what may be one of humankind's oldest ancestors.

After more than a century of peaceful dormancy, the volcano Nevado del Ruiz in Columbia, South America, erupted. Blistering clouds of searing volcanic gases and ash flash-melted huge amounts of snow, launching a towering wall of hot mud toward the village of Armero. People ran - but they couldn't outrun the onslaught, and 23,000 perished.

They have a touch so feather-light, it can barely be felt on human skin. The vividly gold and black colored golden orb weaver spider is the largest web-making spider on the planet. These elegant and efficient arachnids can weave impressive webs up to three feet wide in less than an hour. And these spiders' silk-spinning abilities could have far-reaching implications for science and medicine.

The Bronte sisters were the most extraordinary of literary siblings. In the nineteenth century, when women were discouraged from writing and publishing books, all three produced one or more novels now considered masterpieces. In "The Bronte Sisters," award-winning author Catherine Reef explores the turbulent lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne and offers insights into their passionate and timeless work.

Parvana felt the shadow before she saw it, as the man moved between her and the sun. Turning her head, she saw the dark turban that was the uniform of the Taliban. A rifle was slung across his chest as casually as her father's shoulder bag had been slung across hers...

The Talib kept looking down at her. Then he put his hand inside his vest. Keeping his eyes on Parvana, he drew something out of his vest pocket.

Parvana was about to squish her eyes shut and wait to be shot when she saw that the Talib had taken out a letter.

He sat down beside her on the blanket.

It's 1793, and there's an invisible killer roaming the streets of Philadelphia. The city's residents are fleeing in fear. This killer has a name—yellow fever—but everything else about it is a mystery. Its cause is unknown, and there is no cure.

Fifty years after the Beatles' first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, it remains the most-watched television event in history. When the Beatles burst onto the scene, they charmed the public with their mop-top haircuts, their playful wit, and their sweetly romantic rock songs—igniting Beatlemania, an intense fandom unlike any before.

In 1964, Mississippi civil rights groups banded together to fight Jim Crow laws in a state where only 6.4 percent of eligible black voters were registered. Testing a bold new strategy, they recruited students from across the United States. That summer these young volunteers defied segregation by living with local black hosts, opening Freedom Schools to educate disenfranchised adults and their children, and canvassing door-to-door to register voters.

We spend most of our lives in buildings. We make our homes in them, go to school in them, and work in them. We're surrounded by buildings practically every moment of our lives! But why and how did people start making buildings? How did they learn to make them stronger, bigger, and more comfortable? And why did they start to decorate them in different ways?