In the movies, gladiators fight until one is dead and the emperor’s thumb decides the rest. The real arena was deadly, but gladiators were expensive to train, and most walked away from any given fight.
Did Roman Gladiators Really Fight to the Death? Read More »
In April 1989, Rudy Linares held staff in a Chicago pediatric ICU at gunpoint while he disconnected his brain-damaged son’s ventilator. A grand jury later refused to indict him for murder.
The Chicago Father Who Took His Son Off Life Support at Gunpoint Read More »
In the middle of Argentina’s 1990 World Cup knockout match against Brazil, Brazilian defender Branco drank from a bottle handed over by Argentina’s staff and began to feel dizzy. Years later, Maradona laughed about it on television.
The “Holy Water” Scandal: Did Argentina Drug Brazil at the 1990 World Cup? Read More »
In the 1920s, zoologist Ilya Ivanov won Soviet state funding to try to cross humans with apes. The experiments failed — but it was politics, not biology, that finished him.
The Soviet Scientist Who Tried to Create a Human-Ape Hybrid Read More »
On September 2, 1944, anti-aircraft fire set George H.W. Bush’s plane alight over Chichijima, and a submarine pulled him from the sea. Eight other American airmen captured near the island were never seen alive again.
George H.W. Bush Escaped Chichijima. Eight American Airmen Didn’t Read More »
Roman builders mixed their concrete hot, leaving reactive lime inside it — so when water later found a crack, the crack sealed itself. A company called DMAT is now selling the same trick.
Roman Concrete Healed Its Own Cracks. A Startup Is Bringing It Back. Read More »
From the smoke over Battleship Row to the surrender deck of the USS Missouri: fifty photographs of the Pacific war, in chronological order, taken by Navy photographer’s mates, Marine combat correspondents, Signal Corps crews and a few Japanese naval aviators.
50 Photos From The Pacific Theater Of WW2 Read More »
In 1984 Nike was losing ground and needed a pivot. It bet everything on one rookie — who wore Adidas, didn’t like Nike, and had to be talked into taking the meeting by his mother.
In August 1943, 34,000 American and Canadian troops stormed the Aleutian island of Kiska to dislodge a Japanese garrison that had already slipped away. They took hundreds of casualties anyway — most of them inflicted by each other in the fog.
Gothic soldiers cut Rome’s aqueducts in 537 and the bread stopped. What came next varied wildly — British households went back to bonfire-fired pots, while peasants in the Syrian hills grew rich on olive oil.
After Rome Fell, Ordinary People Lost Their Pottery And Ran From The Tax Man Read More »
