Solomon Northup's tale is unique because his account of slavery was from the lens of a free man. He was educated, married, and had children before he was stolen and forced into 12 years of cruel bondage. This is what Solomon Northup's 12 years as a slave were really like.
Read MoreA recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests a coincidental explosion at Mount Okmok, a volcano in Alaska, caused the extreme climate that decided the very end of the Republic and birth of the Empire.
Read MoreIn just over thirty years, a staggering 16,000 people have vanished while traversing this largely unexplored wilderness, dubbed the Alaska Triangle.
Read MoreReliable contraceptives are nearly impossible to find in the wild.
Read MoreThe moon; our mysterious celestial cousin. While you probably won't be going there soon, even for a lot of money, it costs nothing to gaze up at it in wonder. You don't even need a fancy, heavy telescope to even see it.
Read MoreOn May 29, 2009, Ozzy Osbourne served Tony Iommi a lawsuit.
Read MoreThe year is 1922... don't get caught wearing this kind of hat.
Read MoreAmericans love talking about free speech. Or, more accurately, they love the idea of free speech ... even if they miss the fine print of the actual Constitution.
Read MoreConsidering Pink Floyd's generally bleak outlook, one might think that a childhood spent in a tent with a refugee father from Nazi Germany who fought in the Spanish Civil War would serve as the basis of a brilliant backstory for one of its members. And for Bob Klose, it was.
Read MoreIn the decades since Secretariat won the Triple crown, many horses have tried to match his performance. However, none of them did it as spectacularly as he did.
Read MoreGrant Imahara would work on some of the most iconic effects pieces of the last three decades. Here are some of the movie robots you never realized he built.
Read MoreIn a Reddit Q&A with fans, Imahara talked about his own preferences for the take-everywhere gadget (well, tool, actually) that was his must-have.
Read MoreIt's not the cherriest of gigs, running the free world. Still, the office is nice, and you get your own bowling alley. Maybe that's why children across the United States dream of the day when they'll grow up to be president.
Read MoreDepeche Mode has always been a group subject to drama as intense as their music.
Read More"When I was a kid, I never wanted to be James Bond. I wanted to be Q, because he was the guy who made all the gadgets," said Grant Imahara. Throughout his career, he did exactly that -- a career which ended with his death on Monday, July 13, of a brain aneurysm. He was just 49 years old.
Read MoreNeil Young and Rick James. You probably don't associate the two music legends with each other. But at one time they made sweet music together.
Read MoreRecollections of Abraham Lincoln 1847-1865, an 1895 book which collects anecdotes from Ward Hill Lamon about his presidential friend, included one particularly odd note about a dream.
Read MoreBefore Tiger King captivated the world with its tale of murder, mayhem and madness, before Penn and Teller made Vegas crowds gasp with their ballistic ballet of bullets and bunkum, there were Siegfried and Roy.
Read MoreThe griffin -- also gryphon (says Mythology), also grypes (says Theoi) -- traditionally is a blend of an eagle's front crafted onto the body of a lion. And it may have been based on a real animal.
Read MoreRecent history has not been kind to Thomas Edison. Once remembered as a titan of creative thought, today he's become more or less synonymous with the corrupt underpinnings of American industrialism and man's capacity to dash his rivals' dreams, or go to New Jersey and electrocute an elephant.
Read MoreHistorically speaking, it's never been easy to convince Catholics and Protestants to agree on things. However, in the late 1400s, the two denominations put their differences aside and essentially started an interfaith book club.
Read MoreVikings. The word conjures a host of images in popular imagination: brutal, burly savages wielding axes and howling their way through coastal raids, clad in equal parts dirt and animal skins, and sporting questionable hygiene. However, the Vikings were a far more nuanced society than many realize.
Read MoreThe Roman Empire at its height spanned all the way through the tip of modern day Scotland, down to encompass all of Europe, out to Russia and into Turkey, and along the northern African coast. But did the Romans have any idea what that empire actually looked like?
Read MoreKraken. "Nessy," the Loch Ness Monster. Soe Orm from Scandinavia. The Great American Sea Serpent. That shark from Jaws. Ancient myths and modern stories of water-bound monsters abound in human consciousness and across cultures.
Read MoreYears after people started debating whether the final, top-spinning scene in Inception was all in Dom's head, Interstellar had fans and critics scratching their heads at not only some of the inner logic of the film, but its final sequence, as well
Read MoreSometimes even the greatest musicians need a little bit of inspiration from others. That's certainly the case for the English rock band Led Zeppelin.
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