When Viktor Bout saw an opportunity to build a business in the early days of the Soviet Union’s collapse, he took it. Soon, he would be known as the “Merchant of Death.” By the early 1990s, Bout had ...

During excavations just north of Dublin, archaeologists came across a surprising artifact. Small, hard, and burnt, it didn’t look like anything of importance at first. But it actually turned out to be ...

In the 1700s, a wave of European settlers crashed into the ancestral homeland of the Cherokee people. Raids sowed death and destruction for white homesteaders and Indigenous villagers alike. However, ...

There are many things still unknown about the so-called “dark side” of the Moon. The near side, which faces the Earth, has been extensively studied, and researchers have long known that it once saw ...

John Kraljevich has made a career out of authenticating coins and medals. So when an auction house approached him with a gold medal encased in a red leather United States Mint case, he knew it was ...

After the American Civil War, it seemed that the country's great division between the North and the South had finally come to an end. But another division soon became very apparent: the division ...

In 1862, explorer José María Melgar y Serrano discovered a colossal stone sculpture at Tres Zapotes, Mexico — and the mystery of the Olmec heads was born. In the years since, other ancient stone heads ...

Tens of thousands of years ago, the icy plains of Siberia once teemed with remarkable wildlife like mammoths, woolly rhinos, lions, bison, and wolves. In 2020, evidence of this incredible ecosystem ...

Archaeologists at Corbridge Roman Town, located near Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, England, have unearthed a rare knife handle depicting a Roman gladiator. The figure, representing a heavily ...

After murdering at least five women in 1888, Jack the Ripper seemed to disappear without a trace. He left few clues behind, and investigators have spent more than a century puzzling over his identity.

Ryan, a Democratic Representative from California, had made a name for himself as a maverick politician. He once had himself arrested and briefly incarcerated at Folsom State Prison while ...

Aztec culture remains uniquely fascinating in part due to its various religious practices that tend toward the macabre, including human sacrifice and temples decorated with human skulls. But one of ...