Other, lesser-known towns were often just as raucous as Tombstone and Deadwood. Jerome, Arizona, for example, was once called "the wickedest town in the West" because of its proliferation of bars, ...

As East Germany begins to construct the Berlin Wall, guards are sent to watch over the temporary line of barbed wire separating the east and the west. One East German guard, Konrad Schumann, takes ...

Although many in the modern day associate the Soviet Union with Russia, it was one of the world’s largest multi-ethnic states, comprised of 15 republics. The Soviet Union’s first census, conducted in ...

Katarzyna Zowada, a 23-year-old university student based in Kraków, Poland, mysteriously vanished on Nov. 12, 1998. She was supposed to attend an important therapy appointment that day, so her mother ...

Even as the top hats of the turn of the century became the pageboy caps and the Gatsby tuxedos of the 1920s, J. C. Leyendecker’s suave men sold an American lifestyle of privilege, style, and a sort of ...

Magna, also known as Carvoran, is a fort located near Hadrian’s Wall, which was constructed by Emperor Hadrian in 122 C.E. to secure the Roman Empire’s northern border. Positioned at the junction of ...

The boat itself measured around 18 feet in length. According to Niemi, this sort of grave is indicative of a person of high status in Viking society, as “only the elite would receive a burial like ...

If anyone should be credited with introducing the Hawaiian tradition of surfing to the masses, it’s Duke Kahanamoku. He grew up on the outskirts of Waikiki, where he first fell in love with surfing.

On August 6, 1890, a crowd gathered at the state prison in Auburn, New York. It was a beautiful, bright summer day, but they had convened for a grisly occasion: to watch William Kemmler, a 30-year-old ...

Zack Snyder’s 2006 film 300 was a major box office success and a cultural touchstone, largely thanks to the film’s iconic line, “This is Sparta!” While the real King Leonidas never shouted those words ...

The Mount Tambora eruption in April 1815 was the most powerful volcanic blast in recorded human history. The stratovolcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa had been dormant for centuries — and then ...

In the ancient world, more than 2,000 statues were built to honor a young man named Antinous. He had been born in a far-flung corner of the Roman Empire, and would have been little remembered if it ...