History vs. Myth
You don’t need fiction when history provides you with tales as crazy as the ones we’ve collected for you. Read up while your jaw drops.
Why Not All Insurrections in the U.S. Are the Same
5 Scandals the British Royal Family Wishes We'd Forget
The Radium Girls' Dark Story Still Glows With Death and Deceit
Remembering Bayard Rustin, Civil Rights Leader and Gay Activist
The Odds Are Against Ex-presidents Who Vie for the White House
Meet Florence Kelley: Labor Reformer, Abolitionist and Co-founder of the NAACP
Point d'Alençon Lace Will Always Be the Queen of Lace
Emergence of Hunger Stones Signals Worst European Drought in 500 Years
What Kind of King Will Charles III Be?
How the Great Compromise Saved a Fledgling United States
Why in the World Do U.S. Presidents Pardon Turkeys?
A Short History of Skid Row
Who Invented Chess?
10 of the Oldest Continuously Inhabited Cities in the World
Why North Sentinel Island Is Barred to All Visitors
How the Ritchie Boys, Secret Refugee Infiltrators, Took on the Nazis
The French Resistance Took Many Forms During WWII
Inside Unit 731, Japan's Gruesome WWII Human Experiment Program
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In a bizarre experiment during the Cold War, the CIA used prostitutes and bordellos to lure customers only to drug them with LSD. It was all designed to achieve mind control.
James Dean died at the young age of 24 when he crashed his Porsche 550 Spyder. The car and its parts have been connected to many mysterious deaths ever since. Is it cursed?
Decades after the publication of "The Amityville Horror," not to mention the movie and its countless spin-offs, we're still fascinated by the story of this haunted house — even though many people now think it was a hoax.
By Dave Roos
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Bottle trees originated centuries ago in the Congo in West Africa and still hold a special spiritual place in the heart of the American landscape.
Hekate was the ancient Greek goddess of magic, the moon, witchcraft, the night, necromancy and ghosts who stood at the crossroads between the worlds of the living and the dead.
By Robert Lamb
During World War II, 1,000 Japanese soldiers retreated from fighting with the British into the mangroves of Ramree Island, Burma, where most were eaten by crocodiles. Or so the story goes. But what really happened?
By Dave Roos
When the "killing stone," or "Sesshō seki," split March 5, 2022, on the plains of Mount Nasu in Japan, was the devious spirit Tamamo-no-Mae released into the world to wreak havoc?
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Scientists once thought it was a land bridge between Asia and Africa. Occultists saw it as a place where gigantic humans lived who were once hermaphroditic and laid eggs. Yep, it's got a colorful story.
By Dave Roos
Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Other times, it's just fiction. How much do you know about these horrible hoaxes?
By Alia Hoyt
Theseus was the mythical founder-hero of Athens and the slayer of the Poseidon-cursed man-bull known as the Minotaur. "Olympians" author George O'Connor reflects on Theseus, a difficult mythological hero to love.
By Robert Lamb
Brought to life on the screen by Alexander Skarsgård, the story of Amleth the Viking was the inspiration for Shakespeare's "Hamlet." But who was Prince Amleth and did he actually exist?
By Mark Mancini
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She's been described as a chariot-riding queen of night and the mother of death, deceit and dreams. Who was this mist-shrouded figure that even the gods feared?
By Dave Roos
You think you'd never fall for a conman's (or conwoman's) shtick. But so did many of the victims of these five con artists. What scams did they manage to pull off?
By Dave Roos
Ken Webster moved into an 18th-century cottage in the tiny town of Dodleston, England and soon found himself cyber-communicating with someone from the year 1546.
The most famous story about her says she was so hideous that people who gazed at her would turn to stone. But Medusa was a victim of the Greek gods as well as a victimizer.
By Dave Roos
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Tormented by an evil face at the back of his head, he took his own life at 23. It's a sad tale that has captivated people for generations, except it isn't true. What was the source of this hoax? And can the condition really exist?
By Dave Roos
Michael Rockefeller, the 23-year-old son of prominent political figure Nelson Rockefeller, went into the jungle of Netherlands New Guinea in 1961 and never returned. Here's the story.
One of the few female figures in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the Queen of Sheba is also the mother of the Ethiopian nation. While some experts question whether she ever existed, others think she might have been Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt.
By Dave Roos
A strange radio message sent a search party to find an eerily silent ship manned by a deceased crew, their faces contorted in fear. What happened aboard the Ourang Medan has been a mystery ever since and some folks wonder whether the ship ever existed at all.
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Odysseus is the hero of the epic Greek poem "The Odyssey." But by today's standards, he might not be considered a hero at all.
By John Donovan
How did the Greek goddess Lamia, once said to be a queen of Libya, become a child-murdering monster feared for her malevolent nature?
This was no mere execution. In addition to being hanged until "almost" dead, body parts were taken out and burned before the head was cut off. And we haven't got to the quartering yet.
By Dave Roos
Chastity belts were supposedly worn by women in the Middle Ages to keep them from having sex. A literal lock for a woman's nether regions. But how much truth is there to this torture device?
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She was said to be the most beautiful woman in Greece and the bearer of the "face that launched a thousand ships." But who was Helen of Troy, really?
Season 2 of the mega-hit Netflix show 'Bridgerton' dropped on March 25. Viewers seemed to love the costumes, the sexy storylines, and the diverse casting choices for dukes and duchesses. But is the series just fantasy?
By Alia Hoyt