Federal judge and former special narcotics prosecutor Sterling Johnson, Jr, said of Leroy "Nicky" Barnes, "He had charisma. Have you been in the presence of Bill Clinton when he walks down the street? That was Nicky Barnes." Not a great look for Bill, but Barnes was quite the drug dealer.
Read MoreIf you've ever been to a concert and in between a song break or a lull in the show, heard someone shout from the back of the crowd, "Free Bird!", there's actually a fascinating history behind it.
Read MoreOooh yeah! Randy Savage was one of the true greats of the pro wrestling circle -- a talented performer with an arena-sized personality and enough charisma to actually use "Pomp and Circumstance" as his entrance theme and get away with it. Here's how much he was worth when he died.
Read MoreBut stepping up to the plate before either Bogart or Chaplin were the world's most famous knuckleheads: The Three Stooges -- three Jewish men, former vaudevillians, not generally recognized for their political commentary.
Read MoreMore endearingly known as "water bears" and "moss piglets," tardigrades are water-dwelling micro-cuties that usually measure less than a half a millimeter long. And they're very hard to kill.
Read MoreNo one who died in the 1959 plane crash, that day the music died, was an old man. The pilot, Roger Peterson, was just 21. Buddy Holly was 22; J.P. Richardson, "The Big Bopper," was the old man on the plane, at 28. Youngest of all was a rising star of Chicano rock -- Ritchie Valens. He was 17.
Read MoreWhat are the most venomous animals on the planet? Which creatures could murder you in minutes with just a simple sting or a tiny bite? Well, from sea-dwelling beasts to eight-legged arachnids, these are some of the most venomous creatures in the world.
Read MoreSome people think that the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm are as dark as a Friday the 13th movie. Well, most of them aren’t … but some of them definitely are. Here are the most messed up Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
Read MoreFreddie Mercury is well known for his romantic and sexual relationships with men, but one of his most enduring relationships was with a woman: Mary Austin.
Read MoreFrom unspectacular beginnings as a relatively nondescript medical facility, Arkham Asylum (originally Arkham Hospital) expanded, warped, and eventually became the gothic labyrinth of villainy you know today. But did you know that a real life mental institution inspired it?
Read MoreUFC president Dana White is a pretty powerful dude these days. However, everyone has to start somewhere ... and his start came while running away from the Winter Hill Gang, a gangster outfit led by none other than Whitey Bulger, the notorious gangster.
Read MoreIf you give a mouse a cookie, it will ask for a glass of milk. So, one might logically conclude that if you give a mouse a house, it will ask for a magic kingdom. When the Walt Disney Company became the House of Mouse, its resident rodent helped build an empire.
Read MoreAfter a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, patrons took up whatever they could find and fought back against their oppressors, and amid the chaos, the Gay Rights movement was born. This is the untold truth of the Stonewall Riots.
Read MoreAll by his lonesome, Elfego Baca took on over 80 outlaws and dodged hundreds of bullets in a clash that lasted more than 33 hours.
Read MorePatty Duke's colorful career in acting spanned across seven decades, earned herself 13 awards, and even won herself an Oscar for The Miracle Worker. As Patty Duke struggled with bipolar disorder, addiction, and personal loss, she became a strong mental health advocate and a powerful memoirist.
Read MoreThe author was not only accomplished, he lived an insane and exciting life, including, per Biography, marriage to an Academy Award-winning actress, Patricia Neal. And on top of all that, he was a pretty awful dude who said some pretty awful stuff.
Read MoreAlthough it's a sport that involves two highly athletic competitors going at each other with swords, fencing is actually much safer than many other popular sports. A five-year study by sports science professor Dr. Peter Harmer found that it is especially safe for children and youth.
Read Morethe case came to a close. The 1817 case came to a close. Or it would have, if it weren't for the fact that the whole thing happened again 157 years later. In a series of eerie coincidences, Barbara Forrest met her astonishingly similar and tragic end in 1974.
Read MoreSteve Austin retired from competition in March of 2003 after losing to The Rock in WrestleMania 19, but there has been chatter -- often spouted by the Stone Cold wrestler himself -- that he would come out of retirement to give the new generation of contenders a beer-soaked lesson in respect.
Read MoreWhile every other nation in the world has a rectangular or square flag, Nepal's flag instead follows a double-pennant design, and has done so for centuries. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, this makes Nepal the only modern country with a non-quadrilateral flag.
Read MoreThe very first pins for clothing showed up around the 14th century BCE. It was called a fibula (plural: fibulae) and was mostly used by the Mycenaeans. The Fashion Institute of Technology explained fibulae functioned like a clasp to fasten garments.
Read MoreGenerations have given rap their own spin, evolving their techniques and the sound of the music in the process. Can it really be fair to compare the early innovators to those more technically advanced who emerged decades later, thanks to the influence of those that came before them?
Read MoreAt the 1936 Olympics, Haiti competed under its civil flag, a horizontal blue stripe on top of an equal-width red stripe. In contrast, Haiti's national flag includes a coat of arms in the center, per CRW Flags, but the civil flag was more commonly used for non-governmental affairs like the Olympics.
Read MoreThe music of Glam Rock is something between the feather boa glitz and dramatic pageantry of stage musicals, plus the fabtastic, over-the-top bombast of rock bands like Queen, or Elton John's ultra-big glasses phase. Add to this distilled essence of Tim Curry from 1975's Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Read MoreIn 2017, a team of paleoanthropologists in Morocco made a discovery that would fundamentally alter our understanding of the origin of our species. Their findings, published in Nature, push back the oldest known beginnings of Homo sapiens another 100,000 years.
Read MoreBarry Bonds was voted Most Valuable Player a record seven times (and finished second in the MVP voting twice). Second, there's his offensive output. Bonds holds the all-time record for career home runs at 762, a number so enormous there's almost no chance anyone will beat it.
Read MoreThe heiress and businesswoman Marjorie Merriweather Post (basically, she built General Foods Corporation) purchased an unkempt patch of palm trees and vegetation off the coast of Palm Beach Island in 1923. Four years later, the brush had been transformed into a million-dollar beachfront property.
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