The Untold Truth Of The Clotilda, America's Last Slave Ship
America's tragic history of racism is rooted at least in part in the nation's sordid history of slavery. Enter the Clotilda -- a poignant reminder of injustice.
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The Tragic Death Of Ronnie James Dio
Every time a metalhead throws up the devil horns and casts a protective ward against the evil eye, we're saying a small thank you to Ronnie James Dio. Here's how he passed.
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The Truth About Margaret Beaufort, Mother Of The Tudors
An 1884 song observed that "A Boy's Best Friend is His Mother." It perfectly describes the relationship of King Henry VII of England -- father of the future Henry VIII, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I -- and his mother, Margaret Beaufort.
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What 300 Doesn't Tell You About The Battle Of Thermopylae
Yes, 300 is based-ish on real events, but it portrays those events through a deeply goofy lens. As it turns out, the Spartans, the real Spartans, weren't what you'd call "TV ready."
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The Powerful Note Prince Left Before His Death
Nevertheless, there are those who manage to cut a truly unique swath through the world of popular culture, even art, and sustain that unique place for the course of a career. By anyone's estimation, at the head of the pack would be the songwriter/director/actor/performer known as Prince.
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Should You Get A Bed For Your Dog?
Genuine, committed, dyed-in-the-wool dog owners are like golfers: They're really easy to shop for. But there's one thing dog owners are split down the middle about -- dog beds? To buy or not to buy?
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Netflix's Space Force Could Give The U.S. Government Legal Troubles
In the scant few months since its official unveiling, America's sixth military branch, the United States Space Force, has faced many battles. But its biggest foe of all may turn out to be ... Netflix.
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How Bruce Lee And Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Became Friends
"Bruce Lee was my friend and teacher," Kareem Abdul Jabbar states simply, yet powerfully. The basketball superstar had started studying martial arts growing up in New York, and when he was a student at UCLA sought to continue that growth.
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The Real Meaning Of Kente Cloth
Quick: what do George Floyd and Kente cloth have in common? Congressional Democrats were accused of using both of them in a photo op masquerading as a meaningful gesture.
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The Truth About Neil Young's Unreleased Album
Legendary rock and roll/folk artist Neil Young is 74 years old, but that doesn't stop him from continuing to tour around the world and making and releasing music for his fans.
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How Led Zeppelin Was Formed
They say that some of the best things come by accident, something hard rock pioneers Led Zeppelin knew too well during the group's formation in the late 1960s.
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The Truth About The Anti-Mask League Formed During The 1918 Pandemic
Funny how a little piece of cloth can become the focus of a political debate, and a political divide. But this is not our nation's first pandemic rodeo, and it's not the first time people got snippy about wearing masks in public to help control a public health menace.
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The Truth About Dracula's Disturbing Origin
Bram Stoker can thank his mom for some of the dark inspiration of Dracula.
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Why The 1972 U.S. Men's Basketball Team Refused Their Olympic Medals
At the 1972 Munich Games, a group of U.S. basketball players set out to make their hoop dreams come true, but this was no Olympic Dream Team. There was no Michael Jordan to make gravity look like an inconvenience, no "Mailman" like Karl Malone to deliver in the post, no Larry Bird or Magic Johnson.
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The Real Reason Microsoft's Zune Was Such A Huge Failure
Save for its strange design choices and clunky build, the Zune was a quality MP3 player, which were in high demand in the mid-2000s. So why was it such a colossal failure?
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The Truth About The 2008 Universal Studios Fire
Depending on who you believe, a half-century of recordings -- about 500,000 of them -- went up in smoke from a fire at a warehouse at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2008.
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Why Everyone Hates Touring With Aerosmith
Lots of people probably resent Aerosmith's success, are jealous of Steve Tyler and Joe Perry's combined levels of irresponsible personal debauchery...
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The Legend Of The Jersey Devil Explained
If you happen to find yourself in New Jersey's Pine Barrens, keep an eye out for a scary cryptozoological creature which, these days, usually goes by the friendly name of the Jersey Devil. And no, it has nothing to do with hockey. This is the legend of the Jersey Devil explained.
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The One Song Tom Petty Wrote That He Couldn't Stand
Throughout his musical career, Tom Petty accomplished many impressive milestones. He saw multiple number 1 hits on Billboard's charts, played the halftime show at the Super Bowl, and he released 13 studio albums. His early career was comprised of bands ...
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Here's How Serial Killer Son Of Sam Was Finally Caught
After two years of letters and in-person visits with "Son of Sam" David Berkowitz, it became abundantly clear to author and criminologist Dr. Scott Bonn that Berkowitz "relished his evil celebrity status and that he enjoyed terrorizing the city of New York ...
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Why The Coronavirus Isn't Going To Disappear Like SARS Did
SARS came and went -- which seems like a real glass-is-half-full potential outcome for the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Unfortunately, there's a small pile of reasons why it's unlikely that we'll see the same miraculous contagion disappearing act this time around.
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The Real Reason Julius Caesar Was Kidnapped By Pirates
Get ready to buckle your swash, me hearties, to hear a tale of long ago from the High Seas, and there's a celebrity, and there's pirates! This one happened back around 75 BCE and it involves one of the few people from Ancient Rome that almost everybody can name: Julius Caesar.
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The Critically Hated Movie That's Crushing It On Netflix
"Another insipidly sleazy, lizard-brain shoot-'em-up that through its very dullness demonstrates how rote such ghastly fare has become in our culture." "Instantly forgettable tough-guy fantasia." Just a few selected lines from reviews of the critically panned The Last Days of American Crime.
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The Truth About Italy's Underwater Ghost Village
It sounds like the stuff of fantasy. An underwater ghost village in the Mediterranean? That's got to be a lost suburb of Atlantis, right? Do mermaid ghosts live there, and do they swim or just eerily pass through the water like it doesn't exist?
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The Truth About The Deadliest Octopus In The World
"Small and kind of cute" doesn't necessarily mean "small and kind of cute and harmless," as any Peter Dinklage fan knows. Add "kind of cute, for something boneless" and it doesn't change. Case in point: the blue-ringed octopus. Small, and kind of cute, but astonishingly deadly.
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Forrest Fenn's Hidden Treasure Finally Found
One of the most enduring treasure hunts in the past decade finally came to an end this week. Forrest Fenn, who hid a treasure box possibly worth over $1 million, confirmed on his website someone found his buried chest of booty in the Rocky Mountains.
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The Truth About The Secret Drug Use During The Vietnam War
As documented by the U.S. State Department Office of the Historian, during a 1965 meeting at the White House, President Lyndon Johnson voiced "serious concerns" about whether westerners stood a chance, "in the absence of intelligence," of winning the Vietnam War.
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