Now 73 years old, King is still writing -- he published If It Bleeds and The Institute just last year. While his literary output is indeed impressive, he's as mortal as the rest of us. And back in 1999, King suffered a near-fatal accident that almost deprived the world of his extraordinary mind.
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The holidays offer a time to enjoy family, celebrate the beauty of the season, and engage in festive traditions like tree-trimming, drinking eggnog, and singing carols. While the British Royal Family also does such yearly rituals, their Christmastime is also filled with certain obligations.
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Sir John Macdonald wasn't worried about murderers, trespassers, or even infighting between the Natives and the large influx of new settlers. The Mounties were first formed to deal with the problem of the illegal whiskey trade.
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Deer meat, or venison, was highly desirable, but rarely offered for sale. The rich people who had access to it on their lands simply kept it for their families' personal use. When it was sold, it was still only accessible to the rich people who could afford to buy it.
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The British Royal Family is steeped in tradition, from how they dress to how they interact with people. Celebrating the holidays is no different, even though they are also just a family who wants to be together for Christmas and eat the food that comforts them.
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Few activities are as synonymous with winter as sledding. In colder regions around the world, children excitedly wait for the next snow day so they can go out sledding with their friends. Adults, too, enjoy the thrill of speeding down a hill on a wooden sled -- but they may prefer not to admit it
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Eventually, the Medici won the altercation and regained control of their city. That meant Michelangelo, the once-beloved protégé of the Medici family, needed to get out of Dodge -- well, Florence -- and he needed to do it fast.
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President Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery on November 25. The funeral was watched on television by millions more around the world. There was one person who not only never grieved the president's loss, she never heard the news of his assassination: his maternal grandmother.
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Much of the land where the palace was built was a swampy marsh that drew water from the Tyburn river. The village of Eye Cross was nearby. Living in Eye Cross was a woman named Margarie Gourdemaine (sometimes spelled Margery Jourdemayne), who would later become known as "The Witch of Eye."
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It's widely believed that medieval peasants, for instance, glugged their way through entire barrels of beer for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but this isn't actually true. They couldn't afford it. Homebrewing was a thing, yes, but uncommon.
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One constant in the history of Russia is the phrase "unintended consequences." Russian history is filled with tragedy on a national scale. It has always been a hot mess. To understand why a country so big is so messy, here's a look at the various moments in Russian history that went horribly wrong.
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When it comes to regicide -- the killing of a king -- the historical record is blood-soaked indeed, but few are quite as famous as the execution of France's King Louis XVI, as well as his wife, Marie Antoinette.
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It wasn't that Erich Steidtmann was offended by allegations of his role in one of the worst pogroms in human history. No, what inflamed the ire of Steidtmann was that the woman who wrote the book claimed to have had an affair with him.
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By 2003, Hooters had been operating as a successful restaurant chain since the 1980s and was "flush with cash." Looking to expand the brand, Brooks bought the North Carolina-based charter airline Pace Airlines and refurbished the fleet of planes with Hooters logos.
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The wounded President McKinley was rushed to Pan-American Hospital and operated on by Dr. Matthew Mann. Mann was a gynocological surgeon who happened to be at the exposition and was the first physician to respond. When Mann opened up McKinley's stomach, he couldn't find the bullet.
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Kwanzaa got its start in 1966 when Dr. Maulana Karenga, a professor and chairman of Black Studies at California University, wanted African Americans to build community after the Watts Rebellion, a six-day riot in August of 1965 that killed 34 people and caused $40 million in damage.
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Surgical instruments mechanic Erwin Perzy of Vienna, Austria, was performing experiments in order to improve the brightness of then newly invented electric light bulbs. Shoemakers at the time used the trick of putting candles in front of glass globes of water in order to create a diffused spotlight.
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The holiday season of 2020 is missing many of its traditional gatherings and celebrations due to the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. This is not, however, the first time in history that the holidays have been interrupted by a widespread and very contagious disease.
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Come into a tremendous fortune under no action of her own, and bearing not only the weight of the Winchester name, but the knowledge of how many deaths her money came from. Such was the dilemma faced by Sarah Winchester.
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It wasn't until after Rasputin seemed to improve the Tsar's son's hemophiliac condition that the country would embrace his reputation. He became a favorite in Tsar Nicholas II's court, until his personality turned certain important people against him.
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The Boston Common Christmas tree has been a gift from the Canadian province of Nova Scotia for 48 years. Per the Boston Globe, the gift is thanks for the assistance Boston offered to Nova Scotia after the Halifax Explosion of 1917.
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It was even more common to blame animals for the spread of the disease, and 14th century Europeans became completely fixated on the wrong animal. Instead of trying to eradicate the disease-filled vermin that were ravaging the cities, some decided black cats were to blame for all their problems.
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Women in ancient China, beginning in the Tang Dynasty (618-907 CE) up until the early 20th century, bound their feet as a means to attract better marriage prospects. This made their feet incredibly small, but it also meant their feet become gnarled, broken, and painful.
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Between 1929 and 1939, the entire industrialized world was caught in the grip of the biggest financial crisis in history -- the Great Depression. While the Great Depression was horrible for those who lived through it, the U.S. would look very different today if it hadn't happened.
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The Japanese temple at Sanjūsangen-dō is home to 1,001 statues of the Kannon Bodhisattva, the Buddhist goddess of mercy. But this shrine holds more than just an impressive statuary; it's home to an important rite of passage.
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While it might seem pretty straightforward that after the end of WWII, the Nazi party needed to pay the price for their crimes, it didn't exactly work that way. Many fled Europe in the aftermath of the war and ended up in South America. How they got there is both bizarre and terrifying.
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The world of the Neanderthals was a near-endless winter and there were many ways to die, as the unluckiest Neanderthal in history once found out. Some deaths, and this still holds true today, are simply the result of an unfortunate circumstance. This was the unluckiest Neanderthal in history.
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