Evan Andrews

In 1911, a former Louvre employee perpetrated one of the greatest art heists in history.

Explore 10 surprising facts about the man often called the “King of the Wild Frontier.”

Explore 10 surprising facts about one of America’s first and greatest expeditions of discovery.

Check out nine surprising facts about the route that once served as the gateway to the American West.

Thomas Blood bluffed his way into the Tower of London and nearly made off with the British crown jewels.

Find out more about the fascinating history behind one of antiquity’s most important legal codes.

Get the facts about one of the most legendary Native Americans of the 19th century.

Hostility toward minority communities fueled the L.A. Zoot Suit riots during the wartime summer of 1943.

Explore 11 little-known facts about the man who integrated baseball.

As you might expect for a technology so expansive and ever-changing, it is impossible to credit the invention of the internet to a single person. The internet was the work of dozens of pioneering scientists, programmers and engineers who each developed new features and technologies that eventually merged to become the “information superhighway” we know […]

Below, some surprising facts about the short and infamous life of the man the authorities branded 'Public Enemy No. 1.'

The ritual suicide originated in Japan's ancient warrior class.

Explore eight reasons why this remarkable transit system helped unite the ancient world.

The Romans were prodigious builders and expert civil engineers, and their thriving civilization produced advances in technology, culture and architecture that remained unequaled for centuries.

Explore eight surprising facts about the life of Rome’s fourth emperor.

Ancient Rome waged many campaigns of conquest during its history, but its most influential wars may have been the ones it fought against itself.

For nearly 30 years, a guide called the “Negro Motorist Green Book” provided African Americans with advice on safe places to eat and sleep when they traveled through the Jim Crow-era United States.

The term traces back to a derogatory minstrel routine from the 1830s.

In 1969, a group of rebel activists took over America’s most notorious prison for more than 19 months.

From the infamous nuclear disaster zone near Chernobyl to Henry Ford’s doomed jungle paradise, learn the stories behind six of the world’s most famous vacant towns and villages.

From river pirates to knife-wielding adolescents, get the facts on seven of 19th century New York’s most notorious street gangs.

From high profile capers by the likes of Jesse James and Butch Cassidy to a raid by a gang of Indian political dissidents, find out more about six of history’s most audacious rail heists.

Explore eight surprising facts about one of weirdest and wildest Summer Games in Olympic history.

Check out these facts about one of baseball’s most legendary showmen.

In 1919, Chicago White Sox players allegedly threw the World Series. It remains one of professional baseball’s most notorious scandals.

Explore 10 fascinating facts about the medieval empire that bridged the gap between the classical world and the Renaissance.

On March 9, 1862, the ironclad warships USS Monitor and CSS Virginia squared off in the most influential naval battle of the Civil War.

Bear-baiting, dog fights and gladiatorial combat involving chimps were just a few of the popular—and grisly—animal blood sports in 16th and 17th century England.

Between September 2 and September 6, 1666, a massive inferno ripped through London, reducing much of the city center to a smoldering ruin.

1962’s Cuban Missile Crisis was not the only time the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union almost went hot.

Find out how table tennis became an unlikely tool in international relations.

Multiple people have been suspected of informing the Nazis of the Franks' hiding place, while one theory suggests it may have simply been bad luck.

In the early 1910s, explorers Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott engaged in a frantic, and ultimately tragic, race to be the first man to reach the South Pole.

Learn 10 surprising facts about the heroic and controversial life of the aviator known as “The Lone Eagle.”

Find out about seven groups of enslaved people who risked everything for a chance at freedom.

From fitness tests for infants to state-sponsored hazing, find out why these ancient Greek warriors had a rough go of it.

Check out nine little-known facts about the jazz legend nicknamed “Satchmo.”

It's been the site of mysterious disappearances and other bizarre activity.

From an 11,000-year-old temple complex to a mystifying Irish megalith, here are seven lesser-known world wonders that stand as a testament to the engineering prowess of the ancients.

In 1968, an American tycoon bought London Bridge—all 10,000 tons of it—and moved it brick-by-brick to the desert town of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

The term “Gordian knot,” commonly used to describe a complex or unsolvable problem, can be traced back to a legendary chapter in the life of Alexander the Great. As the story goes, in 333 B.C. the Macedonian conqueror marched his army into the Phrygian capital of Gordium in modern day Turkey. Upon arriving in the […]

Explore 10 surprising facts about the most ambitious project in the history of the space program.

By the time he was inaugurated as president, Washington only had a single natural tooth left.

An attack by President Nixon on his own Justice Department came with grave consequences.

Find out more about this much-maligned investigation into the murder of America’s 35th president.

From Martin Luther King’s immortal jailhouse letter to a classic of philosophy completed on death row, get the facts on eight of the most influential and incendiary works written from behind bars.

Check out nine surprising facts about the man known as the big screen’s “Master of Suspense.”

From a Russian national treasure looted by the Nazis to a da Vinci painting that no one has ever seen, find out more about eight of art history’s missing masterworks.

Explore 10 surprising facts about the glamorous and tragic life of one of the 20th century’s most celebrated writers.

Ninety-five years after its inception, learn 10 fascinating facts about America’s nearly 14-year “noble experiment” in alcohol prohibition.

History offers various explanations from an ancient species of giant fennel to anatomical drawings in medieval texts.

Get the facts on the ways 5 ancient civilizations rang in the New Year.

Check out 10 surprising facts about the life and work of one of America’s most iconic first ladies.

When John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon squared off in America's first televised presidential debate in 1960, image suddenly mattered—more than ever.

Explore 10 surprising facts about the man often called the 'Father of the Constitution.'

Meet eight of history’s most unlikely candidates for the United States’ highest office.

On July 2, 1881, newly inaugurated President James A. Garfield was mortally wounded by a deranged gunman as he prepared to board a train in Washington, D.C.

On September 6, 1901, William McKinley became the third U.S. president to be assassinated after he was fatally shot at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

It has to do with seating arrangements.

Take a look back at how the Fab Four conquered American pop culture.

Explore 10 fascinating facts about what has often been called America’s “forgotten war.”

Victoria Woodhull ran for highest office nearly 50 years before women gained the right to vote.

Brash, uncompromising and fiercely intelligent, Elizabeth Cady Stanton spent more than 50 years as one of the leading voices of the American women’s rights movement.

Explore eight facts about the brutal and often overlooked Russian front of World War II.

On February 25, 1942, an infamous false alarm saw American military units unleash a torrent of anti-aircraft fire in the skies over Los Angeles.

The Germans and Japanese waged small-scale campaigns of bombing, sabotage and espionage.

The first Olympic competition held in 1,500 years was memorable for many reasons.

From early Olympians to the Michael Jordan of Roman chariot racing, these seven sportsmen stand among the athletic elite of the ancient world.

With the election on the horizon, take a look at five famous instances where candidates proved the oddsmakers wrong.

Of the three postwar government investigations into 'unidentified flying objects,' Project Blue Book was the most long-lived. Was its mission to investigate—or debunk?

When German forces closed in around the Soviet city of Leningrad in September 1941, a siege began that would last nearly 900 days and claim the lives of 800,000 civilians.

The battle was the first to be fought solely in the air—and it decided the fate of Great Britain during World War II.

Legend has it that a meatpacker from Troy, N.Y. may have been the inspiration. But the term may have predated him.

Explore key facts about one of the 19th century’s most devastating wars.

Less than two years before the Soviet Union faced off against Nazi Germany during World War II, it waged a bloody war with another adversary: the tiny nation of Finland.  Russia’s feud with its Nordic neighbor began in 1939, when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin looked to expand his influence over Eastern Europe. Citing concerns about […]

Take a look back at the uprising that helped inspire the Russian Revolution.

From George Washington’s nighttime flight from Brooklyn to Mao Zedong’s epic march across China, learn the stories behind seven of military

Nine surprising facts about the Renaissance artist often called “the Divine One.”

The 1918 influenza pandemic did not, as many people believed, originate in Spain.

Explore 10 key facts about one of the most gruesome episodes from the era of westward expansion.

In January 1692, a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts became consumed by disturbing “fits” accompanied by seizures, violent contortions and bloodcurdling screams. A doctor diagnosed the children as being victims of black magic, and over the next several months, allegations of witchcraft spread like a virus through the small Puritan settlement. Twenty […]

From barbaric tortures and occult dessert dishes to unwinnable trials by ordeal, find out more about seven unusual tests once used as evidence of supernatural misconduct.

Take a look back at one of the controversial chapters in America’s 19th-century labor movement.

Check out seven fascinating facts about Geronimo’s life and legend.

It was first proposed in 1789, but it took 200 years and a campaign by a Texas university student before it was finally ratified.

In March 1930, Mahatma Gandhi and his followers set off on a brisk 241-mile march to the Arabian Sea town of Dandi to lay Indian claim to the nation's own salt.

Explore the story of the most destructive Atlantic storm in recorded history, which killed more than 22,000.

In the late 1890s, some 100,000 would-be prospectors journeyed to the remote Yukon region of Canada as part of one of the largest gold rushes in history.

Before his death in 1919, steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie helped fund the creation of some 2,800 libraries across the world

Get the facts on seven people who defied the odds to establish themselves among the richest and most powerful figures of their time.

Learn eight surprising facts about the execution device once dubbed the “National Razor” of France.

During the reign of King Louis XIV, an enigmatic man spent several decades confined to the Bastille and other French prisons. Who was he?

The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan is often credited as being the first person to have circumnavigated the globe, but the reality of his journey is a bit more complicated.

Explore 10 little-known aspects of one of naval history’s most legendary—and deadly—voyages.

Explore ten fascinating facts about Queen Elizabeth’s favorite pirate.

Learn 10 things you may not know about one of the 18th century’s most quotable and controversial thinkers.

October 8, 1871 is best known as the start date of the Great Chicago Fire, which leveled three square miles of property and claimed 300 lives. Yet the very same night the Windy City went up in flames, an even bigger and more devastating blaze tore through tiny Peshtigo, Wisconsin, a frontier boomtown located a […]

National anthems are often only dusted off for patriotic holidays and sporting events, but these stately hymns and marches can also serve as a window into their country’s cultural and political history.

Bob Dylan shocked audiences at the Newport Folk Festival by strapping on an electric guitar and debuting a new rock ’n’ roll sound.

From the man who led the evacuation of USS Arizona to the fighter pilot who took to the skies in his pajamas, learn the stories of eight of the many servicemen who distinguished themselves on one of the darkest days in American military history.