Animal-hair cords dating to the late 1700s contain a writing system that might generate insights into how the Inca communicated, a new study suggests.

Researchers have long wondered whether some twisted and knotted cords from the Inca Empire, which ran from 1400 to 1532, represent a kind of writing about events and people. Many scholars suspect that these textile artifacts, known as khipus, mainly recorded decimal numbers in an accounting system. Yet Spanish colonial documents say that some Inca khipus contained messages that runners carried to various destinations.

Now a new twist in this knotty mystery comes from two late 18th century khipus stored in a wooden box at San Juan de Collata, a Peruvian village located high in the Andes Mountains. A total of 95 cord combinations of different colors, animal fibers and ply directions, identified among hundreds of hanging cords on these khipus, signify specific syllables, reports Sabine Hyland. Hyland, a social anthropologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, describes the khipus online April 19 in Current Anthropology.

Her findings support a story told by Collata villagers that the khipus are sacred writings of two local chiefs concerning a late 18th century rebellion against Spanish authorities.

Newly declassified files show the former secretary of state jeopardized efforts to crackdown on bloodshed by Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship

Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger jeopardized US efforts to stop mass killings by Argentina's 1976-83 military dictatorship by congratulating the country's military leaders for "wiping out" terrorism, according to a large trove of newly declassified state department files.

The documents, which were released on Monday night, show how Kissinger's close relationship to Argentina's military rulers hindered Jimmy Carter's carrot-and-stick attempts to influence the regime during his 1977-81 presidency.

Carter officials were infuriated by Kissinger's attendance at the 1978 World Cup in Argentina as the personal guest of dictator Jorge Videla, the general who oversaw the forced disappearance of up to 30,000 opponents of the military regime.

At the time, Kissinger was no longer in office after Carter defeated Gerald Ford in the 1976 presidential election, but the documents reveal that US diplomats feared his praise for Argentina's crackdown would encourage further bloodshed.

The ivory chess piece was found during construction work in downtown Moscow

Archaeologists have discovered a treasure trove in central Moscow dating back to Ivan the Terrible's times - ten silver coins tucked inside an ivory chess bishop, City Hall said on its website on Wednesday..

The ivory chess piece was found during construction work in downtown Moscow, which is undergoing a major gentrification project. "Ten hand-minted silver coins were stashed in a bishop made of ivory. The total sum is five kopecks," head of Moscow's Cultural Heritage Department, Alexey Yemelyanov, said.

Scientists have finally cracked the mystery of a giant flightless dinosaur dubbed the "baby dragon from China" who they believe weighed up to three tonnes (3,000kg) and measured a staggering eight meters (26ft).

Gigantic fossilized eggs discovered in China are some of the largest ever discovered, measuring 45cm (17.7 inches) across and weighing 5 kilos (11lbs).

When a man named Temüjin was given the title of Genghis Khan in 1206, the Mongols were a recently united people, tucked away in the northeast corner of Asia. By the time Genghis Khan died in 1227, they were sunning themselves on the shores of both the Pacific Ocean and the Caspian Sea. By 1241 they were knocking at Vienna's door, and they remained the terror of eastern Europe for the rest of the century. The Mongols claimed the largest consolidated land empire in history. Seemingly the only way to keep them out was to put the Himalayas between you and them. And many historians believe their power stemmed from an incredibly simple technological innovation: the stirrup.

No one knows when the stirrup was first invented, but it was a boon to any military that used it. Even the simplest of stirrups, a leather loop, let mounted soldiers ride longer distances and stay mounted on their horses during battle. The military success of the forebears of the Cossacks is often attributed to two loops of leather. Same with the Goths and the Huns. Some believe the stirrup even shifted the balance of power in Europe from foot soldiers to mounted knights, dubbed the "armored tanks" of the medieval world by historian Roman Johann Jarymowycz.

The Mongols took things further. Historians think they not only had leather stirrups, but metal ones as well. In 2016, archaeologists at the Center of Cultural Heritage of Mongolia unearthed the remains of a Mongolian woman dating back to the 10th century AD. Along with sturdy leather boots and some changes of clothes, she was buried with a saddle and metal stirrups described as in such good condition that they could still be used today. The stirrups are one continuous thick piece of metal with an open loop for a saddle strap on the top and a wide, flattened, and slightly rounded foot rest. The stirrups had to be comfortable and tough, because Mongols used them to ride in a way no one else rode.

Wei Ling Chua's E-book can be downloaded here.

Excerpt from Kim Petersen's book review:

"Chua has pulled together the western media threads, the disinformation, the recantations, and the biases in a campaign to demonize China - a fast-rising challenger to the hegemony of western capitalism. It is a must-read book for people wanting a perspective outside the controlled negative western media portrayal.

After reading Tiananmen Square "Massacre"?: The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence, the second book in the The Art of Media Disinformation is Hurting the World and Humanity series by Chua — I immediately knew I had to read the first book in the series." Kim Petersen, 9th June 2014

WWII's Eastern Front was by far the bloodiest theater of war the world has ever seen. It cost the lives of nearly 12 million combatants of which 4.3 million Axis troops including 3.55 million Germans - death tolls far in excess of those in the west

The best available estimate of WWII German military deaths comes from German historian Rüdiger Overmans. Most estimates are based on wartime casualty reports of the German military; but Overmans shows convincingly that the system was unreliable and eventually broke down, so that earlier estimates underestimate the number of German military men who fell in WWII.

Overmans, after extensive research of his own, put the total German military war dead at 5,318,000. This figure includes deaths of Volksturm militiamen and foreign volunteers of the Waffen SS and Wehrmacht. It does not include the deaths of Soviet citizens in German service.

Properly burying enemy soldiers is paramount, as victory is meaningless without the victor's benevolence, Orthodox Priest Father Vyacheslav, who helped organize one of Europe's largest German military cemeteries outside of St Petersburg, told RT.

More than 75,000 World War II troops are buried at the German military cemetery, which was opened in the Russian village of Sologubovka some 80 kilometers from Saint Petersburg in 2000, Father Vyacheslav said.

According to the official website of the German War Graves Commission, an NGO responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of German war graves in Europe and North Africa, some 54,000 German WWII soldiers are buried at the cemetery, which has space for 80,000 graves. The remains of more than 35,000 German soldiers have been identified so far, the commission says.

On the eve of Victory Day, the Russian Ministry of Defense published two unique WWII videos on its official website. The videos were released as part of the multimedia project named "Capturing Our Victory."

The videos titled "Heroes of the Rear" and "The Frontline Routine" present a selection of unique photos made during the war. They reveal the difficulties Soviet citizens faced in the rear as well as the great contribution made by women and children to the victory over fascism.

Some 80 years on from the Hindenberg disaster, doubt still grows over the cause of the devastating fire that brought down the airship.

Research into the iconic hydrogen airship's demise has yielded many theories. The prevailing one, backed by the US Department of Commerce, is that a hydrogen gas leak was ignited by static electricity in the air - but decades later, the prospect that the luxury airship could have been sabotaged continues to garner intrigue.

The idea was raised once again at a memorial for the 36 victims of the tragedy Saturday.