The First Scientist to Describe a Dinosaur Bone Mistook It for a Giant’s Scrotum (opens in new tab)

Elias Ashmole was a 17th-century scholar who, besides founding Oxford’s Philosophical Society and London’s Royal Society, created the museum that bears his name, the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, from his well-stocked and eclectic private collection. As he was also deeply fond of alchemy, he not only maintained a close relationship with one of […]