We have community theatre to thank for the Met Gala. I’m dead serious. The kind of theatre where your niece plays Drunkard #3 in Les Misérables, and you spend the entire second act wondering what the hell is happening because the children are whisper-singing over a haunted karaoke track. That kind. Fast forward a few […]
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If you’re into historically accurate medieval BDSM, we’ve got bad news for you.
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In 1973, members of the Oglala Lakota tribe and federal agents faced off in a 71-day siege that was 83 years in the making.
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Arguably America’s most beloved tale of humans eating each other.
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In the summer of 1212 CE, 20,000 kids had the shittiest summer vacation in human history.
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A New England ghost story from the wrong side of the tracks.
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Occultist, blaspheming wizardry is in the eye of the beholder.
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What do you do when you’re king of China? Build a lake of wine and a forest of meat.
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You know what they say about the Neapolitan syphilitic zombie outbreak of 1495: if you remember it, you weren’t there.
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In 1784, the Dutch and the Holy Roman Empire clashed over control of the Scheldt River. There were many survivors.
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Ready to feel old? At 19, Gavrilo Princip had already assassinated an archduke and kicked off World War I.
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Sometimes the best ancient epic poems raise more questions than answers.
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Three popes: that’s the dream, right? Well, they tried it in 1409. Turns out that’s too many popes.
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The most interesting man in the world isn’t the Dos Equis dude. It’s a badass adventurer named Carl Akeley.
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In the 860s, the viking chieftain Hastein pulled the ultimate tourist move: he sacked the wrong Mediterranean city.
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Most Americans know three things about John Hancock: he was the first signer of the Declaration of Independence, he signed his name really big on said declaration, and his signature is now so famous that we call signatures “John Hancocks” in American English. It’s three more things than I’m famous for, but I can’t help […]
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How a beef between King Harold of England and William the Bastard changed the English language forever (and gave us the word “beef”).
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When the Nazis killed her husband, Mariya Oktyabrskaya killed ’em right back.
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Look, everyone knows cats are in league with Satan. But did medieval Europeans really kill them all for it?
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The worst president in history that you probably know nothing about.
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When you’re a Caesar, you’re never crazy. You’re “eccentric.”
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When Teddy Roosevelt was shot at a campaign stop in 1912, he kept the bullet and gave his speech.
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From slave trade galley, to democratic pirate ship, to waterlogged husk off the coast of Cape Cod—this is the story of the Whydah.
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Pythagoras? Yeah, he was a cult leader.
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If it doesn’t have cryptic death dioramas, brutal sacrifices, and alcohol poisoning, it ain’t a Viking funeral.
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The Greeks played it while besieging Troy, Caligula cheated at it, and the church tried to ban it: it’s backgammon, and it’s been around for a while.
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WWII was a nightmare, but that didn’t stop Mad Jack Churchill from having the time of his life.
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Alexandria was home to the world’s greatest library, until someone set it on fire.
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Asaph Hall was a very good astronomer, until his wife Angeline Stickney made him a great one.
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Long before Winifred Sanderson told the partygoers of Salem, MA, to “Dance! Dance until you die!” a small town in the Holy Roman Empire was consumed by a serious, if strange, affliction: its citizens were struck by a dancing plague.
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