The fascinating history of the sleeper sofa No other piece of furniture is so polarizing. It is at once expressive of good old fashioned American ingenuity and low-brow petty thrift.
Andrew Jackson's 1400-pound block of cheese Jackson was a legend. And, at some point, he was gifted a humongous wheel of cheese. This is the story of that cheese,
The urban underground: Secrets under today’s modern cities Many cities have rich histories that date back millennia, and the source of that history lies right below the structures and streets that make their modern versions.
Cruel and unusual: history's most disturbing medical treatments Let's be grateful for how far healthcare has come.
Unraveling the mystery of Shakespeare's "second-best bed" Shakespeare left his wife his "second-best bed," commonly believed to be a mean-spirited gesture. But the bed tells a different story.
The human wonders of America's long lost sideshows The freak show lives on as reality shows, but the fantasy world dreamed up by PT Barnum lies as a relic in the depths of the American imagination.
The 7 worst legal defenses ever attempted "When women become hysterical, it is necessary sometimes to slap them to bring them around."
This 1950s science kit for kids came with real uranium What’s even better than a nice refreshing huff of DDT? Giving children uranium to play with to their heart's desire, of course.
Eilmer of Malmesbury: the flying monk of medieval England The first known serious flight attempt in world history occurred about a thousand years before the Wright brothers, in an English abbey.
