Back in 1992, as most people tell it, a woman ordered a hot coffee at McDonald's, spilled it, and suffered some minor burns — only to turn around, sue the popular chain restaurant, and get rich. In reality? That is the version of the story that the McDonald's PR team has taught you.
Read MoreOutlaw Jesse James attained a folkloric air through a series of brutal robberies and gunfights across the midwest. But there's a bullet out there for every cop killing racist bandit from the 1800s, and James found his on April 3rd, 1882, when it came out of the front of his face.
Read MoreEvery name has a meaning, no matter how silly it might be, and dog names — while certainly a lot more fun and varied than human ones — are no exception. Here are the meanings behind the most popular dog names.
Read MoreWhen you're Leonardo da Vinci and one of your inventions is a helicopter, it seems strange that your most enduring creation is a tiny painting. Then again, Mona Lisa is arguably the most famous artwork in history, so maybe he isn't spinning in his grave. The thing is, who exactly is Mona Lisa?
Read MoreSometimes a musician's downfall can be traced back to a single, catastrophic incident that burns all of their bridges at once.
Read MoreOne spider that doesn't seem to freak out arachnophobes is the daddy long-legs. Who couldn't love a critter with a cute name like that? Big Daddy! Despite their towering, spindly legs, there's something about them that's less creepy-crawly than an ordinary spider. Because they aren't spiders at all.
Read MoreFreediving is a competitive sport with different variations on the theme of going dangerously deep underwater without oxygen. "No limits" freediving is the discipline where the record for the deepest free dive ever done by a human was set, and boy was it deep.
Read MoreCornered, outgunned, wounded, and hopeless, it seems likely that two of the last legends of the Old West -- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -- refused to be taken alive, opting instead to die on their own terms. Or did they?
Read MoreIn 2019 alone, the California Academy of Sciences announced the discovery of 71 new species. Some of these animals have insane abilities, some are masters of disguise, while others are just plain weirdos. Here are the most bizarre creatures discovered in 2019.
Read MoreAmazon's forthcoming The Lord of the Rings TV Series is seeking "'hairy hairy people" with 'wrinkles and lots of them please' to play orcs in the new show," according to the Independent.
Read MoreTwenty people -- that's how many were executed in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Nineteen of them were hanged, per Famous Trials, and the other "was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges." Here's the real reason the Salem Witch Trials happened.
Read MoreWhile there will never be another Beethoven, a group of musicologists and programmers has been training artificial intelligence to complete his unfinished tenth symphony.
Read MoreThe Purge is kind of a goofy concept, but hey, enough of the movie-watching public has bought into the concept (in movie form, at least) that we're several movies and a TV series deep. But c'mon ... let's use our brains here. Here are dumb things in the Purge movies people just ignored.
Read MoreA high-end copy machine nowadays can produce prints with as many as 9600 by 600 dots per inch. With that caliber of printing prowess you might ask yourself "why don't I buy a ream of mint green stationery, shove a few sawbucks in the Xerox, and photocopy me some money?" Read what happens first.
Read MorePaige was the WWE's "Anti-Diva:" A pale, skinny goth girl whose rocker garb and unassuming attitude challenged the company's long-standing tradition of buxom, glittery female wrestlers who looked like cheerleaders. What made Paige quit her sport? What made her retire from the WWE?
Read MoreEveryone knows Windows XP is the pinnacle of Bill Gates' operating systems. It all just worked. Perhaps this is why 18 years after it was released, and long after it has stopped being supported, Windows XP is still Vladimir Putin's OS of choice.
Read MoreThere's another painting that looks an awful lot like the Mona Lisa residing in the Louvre. It's known as the 'Isleworth Mona Lisa' to some, and 'Earlier Mona Lisa' to others -- and some experts think that it might be da Vinci's early attempt at what would become the most famous painting in history.
Read MoreAs Macedonia's king and a consummate world-beater, Alexander the Great portrayed himself as an "invincible god," according to Livius, though he might not have believed it himself. Here's how Alexander the Great really died.
Read MoreOn March 5th, 1953, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin died in his country home near Kuntsevo. If you were looking for a satisfying explanation of the details surrounding his passing, that's as good a place as any to stop reading, because heads up, the rest of the story just sort of keeps getting weirder.
Read MoreWorld War II combined the height of human ingenuity with the lowest point of human nature. The Allied forces showed a MacGyver-like inventiveness in their attempts to outfox the Axis Powers. In one the craziest operations of all, British spies devised exploding rodents to sabotage Nazi factories.
Read MoreOne's the unhinged dictator of a dystopian nation. The other's a five-time NBA champion and possibly the secret love child of a tattoo gun and a rainbow. Together they're really confusing. Here's Dennis Rodman and Kim Jong Un's relationship explained.
Read MorePut on your helmet and get ready for some football as we explain the longest suspensions in the NFL - a league that forgives but never forgets.
Read MoreIn the oft-mythologized world of Wild West gunslingers, it's not the size of the dog in the gunfight; it's the size of the gunfight in the dog. And in the pantheon of pistol-packing legends, Johnny Ringo is remembered as a pack leader. Here's the truth about Johnny Ringo's death.
Read MoreIf a tree lands in the forest, but no one is around to hear it, does it make noise? That answer might depend on how upset the tree was about falling. In 2019, Live Science reported that at least some species of plant seem to release "scream[s]" at frequencies humans can't hear when under stress.
Read MorePandas don't do much. At this point, they seem like a natural first choice for next year's fad superfood. Or they did, until Liu Xiaodong helped them pull themselves up by their bootstraps. How? He started harvesting their feces and turning it into stationery.
Read MoreKing George III will likely be remembered by this generation for chewing scenery during Hamilton and as the guy who had to go home after work one day and say "honey, I lost America." Here's the truth about the madness of King George III.
Read MoreMary I of England wasn't a perfect person, especially in the eyes of those who dubbed her "Bloody Mary." Here's how Bloody Mary really got her name, and why we now have a tomato-vodka breakfast beverage based on her life.
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