Modern historians have come to see William McKinley as an important POTUS who advanced America's global standing through assertive foreign policy. But Leon Czolgosz saw McKinley through the eyes of a man who had lost his standing in America and had possibly lost his mind, and wanted him dead.
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On his 31st birthday, John Dillinger, bank robber and murderer, became the first man to be dubbed Public Enemy No. 1 by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Not long after, he was dead.
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Pandemics seem to come from nowhere. But almost always, even hundreds of years ago, there were people who had a hunch that something bad was coming. And if only everyone else had listened, history might not have been so horrible. Here are people who knew a pandemic was coming before it happened.
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Law enforcement wasn't necessarily a great job on the Wild Frontier. Luckily, there were plenty of marshals and sheriffs to fight crime.
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Margaret Tudor was Queen of Scotland and older sister of England's Henry VIII. Normally people like that have massive memorials. But what if a mob destroyed the tomb, burned the remains, and tried to wipe that individual from the landscape? This is the reason you can't find Margaret Tudor's grave.
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America has long been defined by the proverbial mountains it has chosen to summit, and the rivals it has tried to outpace along the way. Where is America's can-do attitude when it comes to can doos?
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Some things are hard to rank. For instance, your favorite child. Or, if you're royalty, it's probably difficult to pick your favorite piece of jewelry when you have a ton. So did Queen Victoria have a favorite piece of bling? This is the story behind Queen Victoria's favorite piece of jewelry.
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Humanity loves surviving, and from time to time, our greatest minds join forces to punch mortality in the nose. Through acumen and fastidiousness, we've managed to chuck more than a few deadly diseases off the side of the skyscraper of history. Here are the diseases humanity has almost eradicated.
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Before the interstate system, roads were a patchwork at best, maps weren't necessarily complete, and GPS was the stuff of science fiction. But a dog's loyalty? As unquestioned then as it was in cave days and today. Here's the story of Bobbie the Wonder Dog.
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Queen Elizabeth I of England clung to her title of "The Virgin Queen" and, though some suggest she had lovers, she never married and never produced a direct heir, let alone a spare. But that's kind of the whole point of a queen. So why not? Here's the real reason Queen Elizabeth I never married.
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The Medicis were such a big deal in the Renaissance, they still pop up in pop culture today. Still, as significant as their cultural and historical influence has been, in the end they were bankers. So how much were they worth? Let's take a look at how much money the Medici family actually had.
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In one week in March 2020, 3.3 million Americans filed unemployment claims. One expert said, "The United States is in the thralls of a catastrophic unemployment crisis, the likes of which we haven't seen since the Great Depression." But how many people were unemployed during the Great Depression?
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Everyone has been telling jokes about the recent trend of hoarding toilet paper, but the people of Hawaii got the dubious honor of experiencing a truly serious toilet paper shortage in 1971.
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In 2010, Tennessee resident Timothy Cranick paid a visit to the South Fulton firehouse and punched the fire chief in the face, in what can best be described as a case of fighting firefighter with fighter. Why? Cranick wanted payback after the firefighters allowed his parents' house to burn down.
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Dog food, like sausage ingredients and supreme court nominees, is one of those things that you probably don't want to look at too closely. It's a part of everyday life, but you'll stay happier longer if you don't spend too much time thinking about what went into making it.
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Community spread of the coronavirus within the United States has thrown a real wrench into the 2020 campaign season. So what are Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders doing to avoid getting the coronavirus?
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The 1918 flu pandemic that claimed between 50 and 100 million lives worldwide has often been referred to as the "Spanish flu." Yet per the Journal of Translational Medicine, the outbreak most likely began in Haskell County, Kansas ... which, geographically speaking, isn't in Spain.
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Hobby Lobby: depending on your point of view, it's either a pillar of ethical what-have-yous, or the punchline to a middling Bill Maher joke.
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There are a few inanimate objects which, when spotted in the wild, hold the high-class, semi-mythic air of, say, a mustachioed UFO or a Wendigo in a floor-length evening dress. But among them are the incredibly expensive Lamborghini.
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If Charlize Theron hadn't played her in a movie (and earned the 2003 Best Actress Oscar for her efforts), would Aileen Wuornos still be remembered? Probably, because Wuornos has the dubious distinction of being one of the few convicted female serial killers in the United States.
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David Stern Crockett. King of the wild frontier, as the song goes. By his own count, a hunter and marksman who killed 105 bears in a single season. While he certainly didn't have 105 children, he did have a fair share of both sons and daughters. Here's the story of the fairer half.
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It's a story as old as stories: The young hero, introduced to a more magical world by an older mentor figure, becomes warden to an ancient weapon. Recently in Venice, events have unfolded which echo this monomythic story structure ... just with more reading, paperwork, and other nerd stuff.
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The son of a house slave named Lydia, Robert Smalls was born behind his owner's house in Beaufort, South Carolina in 1839. He would go on to live a truly incredible life.
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England's Elizabeth I, last of the Tudors, was the second-longest-reigning monarch of what William Shakespeare referred to as "this sceptered isle." She was said to be beautiful, until this happened...
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When Green's Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.opened in 2017, it supposedly showcased 16 pieces of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Unfortunately, "up to 90% of the 75 fragments sold since 2002 could be fakes." And in the case of the Museum of the Bible, it turned out to be 100 percent.
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Honestly, it's not one of the better jobs in the world, or even in religion. Nevertheless, somebody's gotta be Pope.
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Hemingway actually had a lot of houses. So just how much is one of these places worth?
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