In September of 1998, Swissair Flight 111 crashed unexpectedly off the coast of Nova Scotia. All 229 passengers and crew died in the accident, which was later determined to have been caused by a fire stemming from faulty wiring.
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The movie American Gangster includes a stunning sequence, wherein heroin was smuggled into the U.S. inside the coffins of fallen soldiers returning from the Vietnam War. Did this really happen?
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One of Netflix's most recent acquisitions, The Night Clerk, is part police procedural, part whodunnit, part study of humanity, as the best mysteries always are.
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Acting is a notoriously fickle business. There are those actors who want to branch out into music, or direct, or return to their roots in live theater. Or aspire to film, rising above the more pedestrian work to be found on television. (Commercials? Ew.)
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There have been many popes who kept their birth name when they were elected to the papacy, though the last one was in 1555 -- Marcellus II. Here's why they change them.
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Emmett Till loved to laugh."He would pay people to tell him jokes," according to his cousin, Wheeler Parker. He also "loved to tell jokes," said childhood friend Richard Heard, who remembered Emmett being "a funny guy all the time."
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The Pentagon, headquarters of the United States Department of Defense, is a remarkable feat of architectural design and structural engineering. And it's got a ton of bathrooms.
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Baba Yaga is Russian, she's scary, and she wants to eat you, but there's so much more. How do you know when you've found a Baba Yaga and not just a generic forest witch? Is she definitely going to eat you? Can you go to her for a solid deal on a good horse? This is the legend of Baba Yaga explained.
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An 1884 song observed that "A Boy's Best Friend is His Mother." It perfectly describes the relationship of King Henry VII of England -- father of the future Henry VIII, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I -- and his mother, Margaret Beaufort.
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Quick: what do George Floyd and Kente cloth have in common? Congressional Democrats were accused of using both of them in a photo op masquerading as a meaningful gesture.
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Funny how a little piece of cloth can become the focus of a political debate, and a political divide. But this is not our nation's first pandemic rodeo, and it's not the first time people got snippy about wearing masks in public to help control a public health menace.
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Bram Stoker can thank his mom for some of the dark inspiration of Dracula.
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If you happen to find yourself in New Jersey's Pine Barrens, keep an eye out for a scary cryptozoological creature which, these days, usually goes by the friendly name of the Jersey Devil. And no, it has nothing to do with hockey. This is the legend of the Jersey Devil explained.
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Get ready to buckle your swash, me hearties, to hear a tale of long ago from the High Seas, and there's a celebrity, and there's pirates! This one happened back around 75 BCE and it involves one of the few people from Ancient Rome that almost everybody can name: Julius Caesar.
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As documented by the U.S. State Department Office of the Historian, during a 1965 meeting at the White House, President Lyndon Johnson voiced "serious concerns" about whether westerners stood a chance, "in the absence of intelligence," of winning the Vietnam War.
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In terms of rich athletes, Michael Jordan is always the top of any list. But his fortune pales in comparison to a chariot racer from around the Second Century CE, named Diocles.
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Yes, even your ancestors enjoyed the occasional nippitaty — that is, according to Merriam-Webster, a very strong drink. But while colonists couldn't call upon Postmates or head over to the nearest Trader Joe's wine shop, mom-and-pop liquor stores have served the public since the United States was founded.
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It might seem impossible, trying to nail down the realities of the Star Wars universe. The events described in the movies, books, and video games occurred, allegedly, far, far away, and not even recently. Still, the good folks at MythBusters never let a childish premise stop them.
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As bad as coronavirus is -- and it is bad, make no mistake about it -- Black Plague was worse. (So far, anyway.) Also known as Bubonic Plague, also known as the Black Death, in the mid-1300s it ravaged Western Europe. It would rear its head again in San Francisco.
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John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, helped lay the foundation of the country. They were also the best of frenemies.
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America loves two things: expensive whatnots and big booms. For more than a decade, the good folks at Mythbusters were kind enough to bring us the second of the two. Some were more expensive than others.
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The Headless Horseman has cantered through Scandinavian mythology, early German folklore, and northern Indian lore. This is the legend of the Headless Horseman explained.
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Humans have always been a little suspicious of dogs of the not-so-nice variety. Wolves may only want to be left alone, but mankind has long told tales of another kind of dog: the black-furred, red-eyed beast that lurks in the night, watching and waiting. This is the legend of hellhounds explained.
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Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's -- a blimp. Are you trying to say Superman put on weight? Of course not. That would be mean. Plus, you're probably talking about spotting an airship, which could be a blimp, a zeppelin, or a dirigible.
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The royal family follows a lot of rules. These can involve what they wear, how they walk, or what to say, but one of the lesser-known ones has to do with titles. For example, Elizabeth II is Her Majesty the Queen, but her husband remains His Royal Highness, Prince Philip. Why is that?
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In what might well be a case of rock-and-roll toe-may-toe/toe-mah-toe, Lindsey Buckingham was either fired from Fleetwood Mac or was "forced out" (which is kind of the same thing, maybe) by fellow Fleetwooder Stevie Nicks in 2018.
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Any gambler who knows the secrets of casinos will tell you that there are wagers out there made exclusively for chumps. A scant few hundred years back, one of the biggest sucker bets a person could make was marrying Henry VIII ...
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