It's easy to wonder if classic board games like chess and Monopoly have existed since the time of the cavemen -- your grandparents can beat you at these games! None of these board games are quite that old, but there is a lot of surprising history behind many of our most beloved board games.
Read More
At the height of his power and influence in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties, Al Capone was generally considered the top dog for bootlegging during the Prohibition era. And he was incredibly rich. What happened to all that money?
Read More
Some of history's most reviled villains were actually innocent. Can Prince Edward's reputation rise from the ashes of his inflammatory actions?
Read More
On Halloween night, 1978, Freddie Mercury held a no-holds-barred album release party for Queen's new LP, Jazz. Since then, the night has become an urban legend in its own right.
Read More
Bill Gates exists on a level of wealth that makes most other billionaires pale in comparison. But does he pay his fair share of taxes to the government?
Read More
Here are secret passages you'll find in famous landmarks. You can visit many of these secret passages yourself if you know where to look.
Read More
For most of us, a vehicle is something that gets us from point A to point B. However, not everyone uses their vehicles for such simple tasks.
Read More
In 1960, Ray Kroc bought exclusive rights to McDonald's. Now that company is Kroc's claim to fame. But he had a decades-long career before that. What did Ray Kroc do for all those years?
Read More
Who was the Man in the Iron Mask? What was his crime? Did he really wear a skillet on his face for 30-plus years? Well, the answers to all those questions, in order, are ‘hard to say,’ ‘nobody's sure,’ and ‘probably not.’
Read More
There are few hairstyles as distinctive as the Christian monks' tonsure. When you see someone sporting the shaved head with the ring of hair, you know what they're probably doing the rest of their life. Here's the history behind the monks' iconic haircut.
Read More
Legend has it that twin brothers Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome, per the Ancient History Encyclopedia. Descendants of the mythical founder of Italy, Aeneas, the double-myth twins were the sons of a Vestal Virgin named Rhea Silvia. Some accounts name Hercules as their father ...
Read More
Life often plays the Ygritte to humanity's Jon Snow, and not just because life eventually screws people. Time and time again, life tells even the smartest and most knowledgeable individuals, "You know nothing." Facts are screwy things, after all, and just when you think ...
Read More
From America's founding historical moments, the beard choices of American men reveal deep-seated attitudes about the most basic stuff that makes a civilization tick. So grab a beard comb, and let's dive face first into the bristly, dark depths of the history of the American beard.
Read More
Submerged cities are, by their very nature, baffling to behold, but sometimes these underwater towns are discovered under especially mystifying circumstances.
Read More
Pandemics threaten people's lives and upend their way of life. In what might be described as unnatural selection, the illness enables some companies to thrive, while confronting others with catastrophe, by virtue of whatever goods and services do the most good for people seeking to avoid infection.
Read More
Only a few Jeopardy! contestants have had the juice to become household names. And with that said, the following article gives information on these notable people. Answer: Who are the best players in Jeopardy! history?
Read More
You would be amazed, just amazed, to find out about the improbable origins of colloquialisms, catch phrases, and turns of phrase. Like did you know that "4/20" was invented by some teenagers who liked to get high?
Read More
Bigfoot... Sasquatch... Are these two different mythical creatures or one and the same?
Read More
Maria Henao and late husband Pablo Escobar had drastically different backgrounds. Henao recalls in her memoir, My Life and My Prison With Pablo Escobar, that she "came from an upstanding, traditional family." Escobar not only came from the wrong side of the tracks; he was a runaway train to hell.
Read More
Medellin Cartel founder and Cocaine King of Colombia, Pablo Escobar, was by some accounts the wealthiest criminal in history. But what happened to his money once he died?
Read More
As we've all suddenly realized, your standard Aldi or Fred Meyer is basically a petting zoo for capitalism, with John Public rubbing his meathooks all over your next meal like he's learning new words from Anne Sullivan. It's important to take precautions to avoid germs are the store.
Read More
Marie Antoinette had four children, and despite their royal origins, none of their lives were cake.
Read More
Pope Benedict XVI, elected head of the Catholic Church in 2005, resigned in 2013. He isn't the first pope to do so, but he's the first in about 400 years. Longer than the United States has been in existence.
Read More
"You were right." Surely one of the sweetest sentences in any language. It has to be even sweeter when applied to a theory that is eventually backed up by observable phenomena. Unfortunately, Albert Einstein, perhaps the most influential physicist who ever lived, isn't around to see this one.
Read More
But no matter how grating, exhausting, or awkward your government mandated anti-viral family time gets, it's unlikely that it will ever reach the heights of weirdness achieved by the Ernest Hemingway household in 1926.
Read More
Roughly the size of a small hummingbird, this is the smallest dinosaur ever discovered.
Read More
If you grew up in the United States, you're familiar with a certain elementary school narrative regarding World War II, about how the U.S. triumphantly "ended the war" by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The truth? Well, it's a bit more complex, as usual.
Read More