Historical Figures

While Londoners on the East End saw their fair share of grime, drugs and prostitution, nothing could've prepared them for Jack the Ripper's bloody rampage in 1888. What's the story behind this legendary killer?

By Josh Clark & Patrick J. Kiger

Not only did Alexander rule a territory of three continents, he founded 70 cities and even had Aristotle for a teacher.

By Dave Roos

You know most of their names, but here are the fascinating stories of how six criminal masterminds of the old West lived and died.

By Oisin Curran

Since Queen Elizabeth received her first corgi at age 7, it's been an 80-plus-year love affair. But not everyone appreciates the breed's "barkiness."

By Dave Roos

Literary heavyweight Ambrose Bierce mysteriously disappeared in 1914 leaving behind a trail of myths and legends, but little evidence as to his fate.

By Chris Opfer

Since "The Secret Annex" was first published in 1947, scholars have dissected every page and entry of Anne Frank's diary to put Anne and her work into a proper perspective. In doing so, a new image of Anne slowly has emerged.

By John Donovan

Well before he died, Jesse James was a legend. He was a hero even to the man who shot him in the back.

By Oisin Curran

George P. Burdell has registered for classes, signed petitions and even lettered in football and basketball, but on the campus of Georgia Tech in Atlanta, he is the man who never was.

By John Donovan

Billy the Kid, whose legal name was Henry McCarty, was almost certainly killed by Lincoln County, New Mexico, Sheriff Pat Garrett, though questions have always lingered about what really happened.

By Oisin Curran

In 1902, a young German set out for the South Seas, determined to live solely on coconuts and the sun. He even attracted a following. Then everything went to pieces.

By Nathan Chandler

The story of the "Portuguese Oskar Schindler" who lost everything trying to save thousands during the Holocaust is finally being told by descendants of those he saved.

By John Donovan

She commanded as many as 70,000 other pirates, became fabulously wealthy and yet managed to retire without being captured or imprisoned. So how did she do it?

By Mark Mancini

André the Giant made his wrestling debut at New York City's Madison Square Garden. He went on to become one of WWE's biggest stars before his untimely death in 1993.

By Michelle Konstantinovsky

We know they died in a hail of gunfire, but who set this criminal couple up and how many shots were fired?

By Oisin Curran

Meet this female German physicist who survived the Nazis and became a ground-breaker in combustion science and plasma physics.

By Michelle Konstantinovsky

He taught the colonists about the process of inoculation, helping to save countless lives.

By Jesslyn Shields

Her owners nearly tricked her out of freedom in California but the cavalry rode to her rescue. She later became one of the wealthiest and most generous African-Americans in the state.

By Dave Roos

Myspace took the world by storm and Tom was everyone's first friend. But when we all left the platform, we all left Tom, too. So where did he go?

By Michelle Konstantinovsky

This is the strange-but-true story of Capt. Sluman Gray, who died at sea and was preserved in barrel of rum. What would become of this soused specimen?

By Dave Roos

Do da Vinci's self-portrait paintings, such as "Salvator Mundi," betray the artist's condition?

By Stell Simonton

Anna Coleman Ladd's Studio for Portrait Masks created new faces for at least 185 disfigured soldiers and paved the way for modern facial prosthetic techniques.

By Jesslyn Shields

Germany's Adolph and Rudolph Dassler fell out so badly, they had to start two separate shoe companies.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

Scotsman Gregor MacGregor was a world-class con man who convinced hundreds of people to invest in the mythical country of Poyais.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

When police in Victorian England arrested two popular male cross-dressers, it resulted in one of the more scandalous trials of the era.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus

Ada Lovelace was the daughter of famed poet Lord Byron. But she moved out of her father's shadow to make a name in numbers, not words.

By Melanie Radzicki McManus