Wreck of 17th-Century Dutch Warship Discovered

NEW YORK — The wreck of a 17th-century Dutch warship has been discovered off the coast of Tobago, a small island located in the southern Caribbean. Marine archaeologists believe the vessel is possibly the Huis de Kreuningen, which was lost during a bloody fight between Dutch and French colonists. 

On March 3, 1677, the French Navy launched a fierce attack against the Dutch in Tobago’s Rockley Bay. European settlers coveted Tobago for its strategic location; in fact, the island changed hands more than 30 times afterChristopher Columbus arrived in the New World.

The abbreviated story of this particular battle is, “Everybody dies, and every ship sinks,” according to Kroum Batchvarov, an assistant professor of maritime archaeology at the University of Connecticut. Indeed, about 2,000 people were killed and up to 14 ships went down during the skirmish. But until now, none of those sunken vessels had been recovered.

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Shipwrecks Gallery: Secrets of the Deep

Fisherman Pulls Up Beastly Evidence of Early Americans

A 22,000-year-old mastodon skull and tool dredged from the seafloor in the Chesapeake Bay hints of early settlers in North America.

The two relics, which were pulled up together, may come from a place that hasn’t been dry land since 14,000 years ago. If so, the combination of the finds may suggest that people lived in North America, and possibly butchered the mastodon, thousands of years before people from the Clovis culture, who are widely thought to be the first settlers of North America and the ancestors of all living Native Americans.

But that hypothesis is controversial, with one expert saying the finds are too far removed from their original setting to draw any conclusions from them. That’s because the bones were found in a setting that makes it tricky for scientists to say with certainty where they originated and how they are related to one another.

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Fall Colors Spotted from Space

Pictures from space show that fall is in full swing in parts of North America. Clusters of trees have shed their summer greens in favor of autumnal oranges and reds around the Great Lakes and New England. 

NASA’s Terra satellite went leaf peeping last week from its perch about 438 miles (705 kilometers) above the planet.

The Earth-watching satellite captured the fall colors spreading around the Great Lakes on Friday (Sept. 26) and New England on Saturday (Sept. 27) using its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. The images were released today (Sept. 30) by NASA’s Earth Observatory.

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In Photos: Fall Foliage Seen from Space

For his 158th birthday, Nikola Tesla got a day named in his honor and a new science museum with $1 million in funding from billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

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