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, ...

Before the Soviet Union, there was the Russian Empire, an autocratic regime that was ruled by tsars. By the early 20th century, though, support had decreased significantly for the last tsar, Nicholas ...

Between 1899 and 1951, J. C. Leyendecker drew 322 covers for the Saturday Evening Post, created thousands of advertisements for companies like Kellogg's and Ivory Soap, and invented the idealized ...

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 ...

But the king wasn’t happy with the National Constituent Assembly, and he quietly began to call in troops around Paris in early July. Rumors soon spread that Louis XVI would forcibly shut the assembly ...

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 ...

In 1903, a strange mix-up occurred at the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. When a man named Will West arrived at the prison, the clerk on duty was certain he had processed him before.

The second shoe found at the site was more intact — and so large that it “drew impressed gasps from volunteers and staff alike.” “Although in this case only one of the several sole layers [was intact] ...

Around 1533, the Ottoman sultan broke custom to marry his favorite concubine Hürrem Sultan — and she soon became the most powerful woman in the empire. She was known by many names: Hürrem Sultan, ...

The man had seemingly died “painlessly,” and the electric chair thus seemed like a new, more humane method of execution. “The sentence of the court,” the judge told Kemmler, according to court ...

Archaeologists in Spain recently unearthed a rock that somewhat resembled a human face, especially because of a small red dot where the nose would be. Now, the story behind that dot has left ...

Hadrian was married to Vibia Sabina, but he also had male lovers. This was not unusual in ancient Rome, where older men often had relationships with young men and teenage boys (including teens who ...