Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Beginning in the 1430s, navigators sailing under the Portuguese flag explored ... in the mid-1400s. The westernmost country in Europe, Portugal was the first ...

One reader wonders: Since purple dye was scarce, why didn’t people just combine blue and red? Illustration by Aurélia Fronty Q: I’ve heard that purple was called the royal color because ...

WASHINGTON, D.C.: U.S. private sector hiring exceeded expectations in March, suggesting some underlying strength in the labor market ...