Queen Elizabeth II: She's iconic. She's universally known. She has not once, to the best of anyone's knowledge, beheaded a traitor with a broadsword and forced his followers to clean the blood from her throne with their tongues.
Read More
The Kingdom of Kush was an ancient civilization located in Northeast Africa, just south of Ancient Egypt. The Kushites were winners and losers; underdogs and overlords; aggressively expanding and defensively skulking into the historical shadows. This is the true history of the lost Kingdom of Kush.
Read More
Was it galling, to be a 19th-century male married to a queen? With no real title or responsibilities of your own? That's one of the puzzles presented by the life of Albert Francis Charles Augustus Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, or Prince Albert, who had the good fortune to marry Queen Victoria.
Read More
In the Spring of 2020, the citizens of this fair planet found themselves in an unenviable position: humans had, collectively, run out of board games that didn't make them want to kill each other. Rounds of Risk ended invariably with one person stuck in Greenland, while the other ...
Read More
On Halloween night, 1978, Freddie Mercury held a no-holds-barred album release party for Queen's new LP, Jazz. Since then, the night has become an urban legend in its own right.
Read More
King Tut. The name captures the imagination. Just ask Steve Martin, who did a famous musical number about Tutankhamen for Saturday Night Live. Like a lot of history, though, the details often get lost in the translation ... until science steps in and gives the low-down.
Read More
Elizabeth I had the extremely mixed blessing of being born of the House of Tudor, the reigning royal family of England, which began with Henry VII in 1485. Royalty being what it is, and national elections being what they weren't, succession was always an issue.
Read More
A few months ago, times were simpler -- largely because Tiger King hadn't yet premiered. But now that it has, with its puzzling cast of characters, we have names like Bhagavan 'Doc' Antle, and equally puzzling financial situations. With his money in mind -- how did the tiger earn its stripes?
Read More
Queen Elizabeth I had her pick of the litter in terms of recreational activities. Some of them got pretty gross. Here's what she did for fun.
Read More
Monarchies being what they are, provisions must be made for who takes over when the present occupant of the throne kicks the royal bucket. The whole megillah gets infinitely more complicated if the monarch in question didn't marry, and had, as part of her public image, the title "Virgin Queen."
Read More
Even the most mundane life would be difficult to sum up in five hours and change, but the life of Joe Exotic has been anything but mundane. Here's what the makers of the hit Netflix series Tiger King: Muder, Mayhem and Madness left out about the real story.
Read More
Fans of the Netflix hit true-crime documentary series Tiger King may very well remember Bhagavan "Doc" Antle, the refined, theatrical South Carolina animal park owner. He is the kind of cool and collected character that the docuseries' main subject, Joe Exotic, aspired to be. Here's what he's up to.
Read More
Some things are hard to rank. For instance, your favorite child. Or, if you're royalty, it's probably difficult to pick your favorite piece of jewelry when you have a ton. So did Queen Victoria have a favorite piece of bling? This is the story behind Queen Victoria's favorite piece of jewelry.
Read More
Queen Elizabeth I of England clung to her title of "The Virgin Queen" and, though some suggest she had lovers, she never married and never produced a direct heir, let alone a spare. But that's kind of the whole point of a queen. So why not? Here's the real reason Queen Elizabeth I never married.
Read More
England's Elizabeth I, last of the Tudors, was the second-longest-reigning monarch of what William Shakespeare referred to as "this sceptered isle." She was said to be beautiful, until this happened...
Read More
If you tend to see the Vikings as cruel, sadistic, muscle-bound axe-lovers, the blood eagle execution is all the evidence you need to back it up.
Read More
King Philip II of Spain took the throne in 1556. His reign marked the start of absolutism, an era characterized by all-powerful, completely unaccountable monarchs. But the Spanish Crown's power has dwindled significantly since then. How much power does the King of Spain really have?
Read More
When most think of Vikings, the first thing that comes to mind is looting and pillaging. But that's just one aspect of Viking life and culture, and over the years, historians have been able to unravel many more details of daily Viking life. Here's what life was really like as a Viking in 800 AD.
Read More
Superstitions. Salt cannot be spilled. Ladders demand a careful sidestep. Cracks must not be trodden upon, lest the chiropractic health of one's sainted mother be thrown into disarray. And of course, a broken mirror leads, inevitably, to seven years of bad luck.
Read More
Stephen Hawking said that black holes probably evaporate away and eventually vanish over unimaginably long timescales. Cool. But what does this have to do with hair, and whether or not black holes have any?
Read More
In 2014, Flint, Michigan became the poster city for water contamination. But it's not the only offender.
Read More
Queen Elizabeth owns a great many things like jewelry, palaces, and works of art. And you'd think that would be enough, right? But no. Apparently, her majesty also needs to own all of the whales off the coast of Great Britain. Here's the weird reason Queen Elizabeth owns so many whales.
Read More
The sun never set on Queen Victoria's empire, but eventually, as suns tend to do, it set on her life. And after she passed away, the queen's funeral was incredibly bizarre.
Read More
Elizabeth of Bohemia is known as the "The Winter Queen," and she had a catastrophic reign. All 12 months of it. Yes, it turns out a stupid nickname can lead to people misremembering your whole tenure as royalty. Here's the truth about the reign of the Winter Queen.
Read More
Queen Victoria left astonishingly specific instructions as to how she was to be interred after she died. Kept secret from the royal family, they detailed a pharaoh-level list of items to be buried with Her Majesty, and some were weird. These were the creepy things inside Queen Victoria's coffin.
Read More
Today is a new day, nay, a new era, as McDonald's has announced the forthcoming release of a line of scented candles.
Read More
Some actors wanted to learn self-defense. McQueen wanted a deeper understanding of the martial art. So he turned to the best: Bruce Lee.
Read More