Month: May 2014

Most people don't usually associate Victorian-era London with wonderful employment opportunities. One of the most disgusting jobs of the period ...

Buried alive wasn't an uncommon thing even in relatively recent history. In the mid-1800s, doctors in Paris organized an academic ...

From the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, souls of the recently deceased were often helped on their way ...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is often thought of as someone who was born with natural talent. However, the earliest pieces by ...

Hot on the heels of the California Gold Rush came the Great Diamond Hoax. Two Kentucky grifters managed to swindle ...

The Jewish people were the most badly persecuted of all of the "inferior" races by Hitler's Germany in World War ...

Paracelsus is often called the father of modern medicine and chemistry, establishing the basics of what we now accept as ...

According to the theory, an infinite amount of monkeys typing on an infinite number of keyboards for an infinite amount ...

The Second World War's Alaska campaign is ruefully called the "Forgotten War," but there is one monumental blunder that all ...

In the late 19th century, the open range of the American West was carved up by barbed wire. During the ...

We've all seen the movies where the hero (or hapless sidekick) falls into quicksand and is ever so slowly swallowed ...

Quite a few animals are in tune with the magnetic field. Sharks, turtles, ants, and even cows can sense the ...

From anywhere between 260 and 300 nights out of any given year, the skies over the Catatumbo River in Venezuela ...

The French take their Champagne really seriously. This is why, in most of the world, it is illegal to call ...

The commonly held belief, largely due to propaganda after his death, states that General George Armstrong Custer held a heroic ...

Oregon's Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the United States, formed by many, many volcanic eruptions over thousands of ...

Spiders and snakes creep us out and are probably near the top of many people's lists of fears. However, their ...

Even if you're not a Star Trek fan, you're familiar with the Vulcan salute. It's one of those gestures that ...

Government-initiated dehumanizing campaigns during World War II were so successful that the conflict in the Pacific theater was one of ...

We've always been told that drinking a lot of milk is crucial to developing strong bones and keeping conditions like ...

Today, of course, America considers its firefighters some of its greatest heroes. But it wasn't always like that. In fact, ...