In the musky, firework-singed police lineup of large-scale American business failures, one perp stands head and shoulders above the rest: the XFL, or Xtreme (sigh) Football League, Vince McMahon's collaboration with NBC. Here's why it failed (the first time.)
Read MoreMarrying Henry VIII was the worst thing that could possibly happen to you. After all, the dude was a homicidal monster. So who were the women unlucky enough to be queen of England between the years 1509 and 1547? Well, here’s the tragic truth of Henry VIII’s six wives.
Read MoreIt's easy to blame a cat for bringing bad luck, and we've been doing it forever. But why? How did this superstition arise?
Read MoreIn all of the history of the United States, by 1861 no one had successfully assassinated a president, let alone a president-elect. That included Lincoln -- but that doesn't mean people hadn't tried.
Read MoreHenry VIII, King of England, was by no means the picture of health. By all reports a fairly robust, even athletic, man in his younger days, by the time he died in 1547, age 55, he was probably not what a lot of children wanted to grow up to be. But he did manage to avoid 'sweating sickness.'
Read MoreToday's contestants are the creme de la creme: in the red corner, with a career 56 wins and three acrimonious divorces, we have two-time heavyweight champion of the world Muhammad Ali. In the blue corner, martial arts icon and verifiable Green Hornet BFF Bruce Lee.
Read MoreWheel of Fortune has been around forever, and many have won big. But only one contestant has ever appeared twice.
Read MoreFreddie Mercury was a verbal virtuoso -- one of his many talents. Here are some of his most inspiring, and just plain entertaining quotes.
Read MoreBill Withers, who gave us such classic songs as "Lean on Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine," was a 32-year-old laid-off factory worker when he got two letters: one from the factory, inviting him back to work, and the other from The Tonight Show, inviting him to appear. He chose correctly.
Read MoreUntil 2005, it was legal to execute juveniles in the United States. As Oyez details, the case of Roper v. Simmons put an end to capital punishment for citizens under 18 years of age. Before 2005? That was a different story.
Read MoreBill Withers, the soulful singer-songwriter who gave us such classic tunes as "Lean on Me" and "Ain't No Sunshine," died March 30, 2020, at the age of 81. He had been suffering from heart problems, said his son, quoted in the obituary in The New York Times.
Read MoreShe was only 18 when she took an ill-fated bus ride with a fellow student, Alejandro Gómez Arias. Though it would prove life changing, it may well be the reason we know her today.
Read MoreYou know the blonde, spiky hair, you know the sneer. It's Billy Idol, and though the 1980s are long over, he's still around. But what about his money? Is that still here?
Read MoreTsar Nicholas I of Russia is credited with coining the phrase "sick man of Europe" to refer to the declining Ottoman Empire. Though, as documented in The Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire, Nicholas actually said, "We have a sick man on our hands, a very sick man." How far the mighty had fallen.
Read MoreJohnny Cash started out poor, born in Arkansas as the fourth of seven children (four boys, three girls). As it turns out, losing his a sibling had a profound impact on him.
Read MoreAs The Book of Absinthe describes, the ever-witty Oscar Wilde once said, "After the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world."
Read MoreThere are a couple of schools of thought concerning the events which led Chuck Berry to hit Keith Richards so hard that his life Jumpin' Jack Flashed before his eyes. Here they are.
Read MoreThe Doobie Brothers have had a truly glorious and long-lasting career that's made doubly more impressive by the fact that it's been in the highly volatile world of rock 'n' roll. But has it left anything in the musicians' pockets, or has the rock star life left them penniless?
Read MoreJosef Mengele was a breed of monster all his own, a doctor who opted not to heal the sick but instead conducted torturous and often fatal experiments on Jews at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Here's how he died.
Read MoreOnly half of the emperor of China actually died in office. And that's just the beginning. This is the tragic history of Chinese emperors.
Read MoreA 1993 study showed that just shy of half of the members of the yakuza had been ritualistically deprived of a portion of their finger, and that 15% of those had undergone the procedure more than once. The practice is called "yubitsume," or "finger shortening," and it goes back over a hundred years.
Read MoreHygiene is your friend in the best of times. However, now that the COVID-19 pandemic has plunged the world into the blurst of times, sanitizing surfaces seems more paramount than ever. But what about the surfaces that go in your mouth?
Read MoreIt's a frog-eat-frog world, and it's only getting hungrier. However, the award for the most WTF defense goes to the aptly named "horror" frog, which freaking breaks its own toes and turns them into weapons.
Read MoreHe was named Johnny Cash (except when he wasn't). He always wore black (except when he didn't). Complicated? Of course he was. Everyone is. For instance, it's worth examining his famous song "Folsom Prison Blues," and what inspired it ...
Read MoreWith "social distancing" expertly positioning itself as 2020's Word of the Year, companies and schools have turned to teleconferencing with unprecedented interest. At the forefront of this movement has been Zoom, the video calling service which has experienced a meteoric rise to the top.
Read MoreMata Hari has gone down in history as the femme fatale du jour of World War I. Mata Hari is the classic archetype. She was exotic and alluring, a promiscuous dancer, a courtesan, a divorcee, and a seductive spy. But that isn't Hari's whole story. This is the crazy real-life story of Mata Hari.
Read MoreIt would be easy to assume that Ringo Starr decided to leave the Beatles due to ego. Shockingly, it wasn't ego that drove Ringo to leave the Fab Four mid-recording session on August 22nd, 1968. To hear it described by those involved, it was the opposite: he didn't feel good enough.
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