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When Sexual Assaults Made History

Nearly as long as people have been recording history, they have documented sexual assaults. From the writings of ancient Greece to the Bible to the letters of early explorers, sexual violence has long been a brutal part of the human story. Some assaults have even changed the course of history. And, like all history, what […]

8 Times America’s War on Drugs Was Stranger Than Fiction

When the United States first launched the “War on Drugs” in the mid‑20th century, not even the cleverest conspiracy theorists could have imagined the far‑reaching consequences the campaign would have around the world. From the CIA allowing drug traffickers to flourish in exchange for their assistance in toppling leftist leaders abroad to the deal made […]

Was King Arthur a real person?

We’ve all heard stories about King Arthur of Camelot, who according to medieval legend led British forces (including his trusted Knights of the Round Table) in battle against Saxon invaders in the early sixth century. But was King Arthur actually a real person, or simply a hero of Celtic mythology? Though debate has gone on […]

9 FBI Fast Facts

1. Thanks to J. Edgar Hoover, FBI directors are now term‑limited. Hoover landed his first job with the Department of Justice in 1917 at just 22 and by 1924 had become the head of the FBI’s forerunner, the Bureau of Investigation. When Hoover died at 77, he had spent 48 years—62 percent of his life—at the […]

The Biggest Snow Storms in US History

March 11‑14, 1888 More than 120 winters have come and gone since the so‑called “Great White Hurricane,” but this whopper of a storm still lives in infamy. After a stretch of rainy but unseasonably mild weather, temperatures plunged and vicious winds kicked up, blanketing the East Coast in snow and creating drifts up to 50 […]

8 Things You Should Know About the Bill of Rights

The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, became law on December 15, 1791.

7 People Suspected of Being Jack the Ripper

Carl Feigenbaum According to one hypothesis, proposed by a retired English detective, Jack the Ripper was a German sailor named Carl Feigenbaum who was executed for murdering a New York woman in 1894. The detective, Trevor Marriott, a former member of the Bedfordshire homicide squad, points to the fact that two merchant docks were in […]

Was Sherlock Holmes based on a real person?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional detective with the knack for solving crimes through observation and reason was modeled after Dr. Joseph Bell, one of Conan Doyle’s medical school professors. Conan Doyle, born in Scotland in 1859, studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh and went on to work as a physician in England while writing […]

History’s Great Romantics

1. Sappho Much uncertainty surrounds the life story of the celebrated Greek lyric poet Sappho, a woman Plato called “the tenth Muse.” Born around 610 B.C. on the island of Lesbos, now part of Greece, she was said to have been married to Cercylas, a wealthy man. Many legends have long existed about Sappho’s life, […]

6 Secrets of King Tut

1. There is no curse of King Tut. When Carter first entered King Tut’s lost tomb in November 1922, his financial backer George Herbert—a wealthy lord with a passion for Egyptology—was at his side. Four months later, Herbert died of apparent blood poisoning from an infected mosquito bite. Newspapers speculated that the Englishman had fallen […]

5 US Presidents Who Taught School

Meet five U.S. presidents who spent part of their early careers shaping young minds in the classroom.

Secret Agents in Hoop Skirts: Women Spies of the Civil War

1. Rose Greenhow Known from a young age as “Wild Rose,” Rose O’Neal Greenhow ascended the ranks of Washington, D.C., society as the wife of a wealthy and prominent doctor. Her charmed life took a tragic turn in the 1850s, when her husband and five of their eight children died. In the months before the […]