All Articles — Page 4
Every story we've published, newest first
Anna Delvey: The Fake Heiress Who Conned New York
Netflix made Anna Delvey famous. Here's how a Russian-born nobody talked her way into Manhattan high society, and nearly walked off with millions.
Arsenal: The Xiphos, the Greek Hoplite's Backup Blade
The xiphos sword was what a Greek hoplite drew only when the spear broke. A history of the leaf-bladed sidearm that outlasted the phalanx itself.
The Bernie Madoff Ponzi Scheme
The Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme ran for decades, faked $65 billion in returns, and collapsed within a single confession, the largest fraud in US history.
Billy McFarland and the Fyre Festival Fraud
How a viral orange square, forged financial documents, and a cheese sandwich exposed the Fyre Festival fraud, a $26 million scheme behind the festival's collapse.
Black Death Florence 1348: How a City of 100,000 Buried Half Its People
The Black Death Florence suffered in 1348 killed roughly half the city. Boccaccio watched it happen, then turned the horror into the Decameron.
Bleeding the Patient: Two Thousand Years of Bloodletting and the Four Humors
Bloodletting history's most famous case: George Washington's doctors bled him four times in his final hours, following centuries of medical theory on the four humors.
Debunked: Catherine the Great Did Not Die Having Sex With a Horse
The Catherine the Great horse myth, a viral tale of death by horse, is 18th-century political slander. Here is what the household actually recorded that day.
Debunked: Did Einstein Fail Math?
Did Einstein fail math? Everyone repeats it, but his actual school certificate says the exact opposite, in writing, with a grade.
Debunked: Medieval Scholars Never Believed the Earth Was Flat
The flat-earth Middle Ages never happened. Bede, Aquinas, and a required university textbook all taught a sphere, centuries before Columbus sailed.
Debunked: Napoleon Was Not Actually Short
Was Napoleon short? His reputation comes from a mixed-up unit of measurement. His actual autopsy records tell a very different story.
Debunked: Vikings Never Wore Horned Helmets
Did Vikings wear horned helmets? No: the image came from a German opera stage, not a Scandinavian battlefield. Here is what the graves and sagas actually show.
Debunked: Salem's Witches Were Hanged, Not Burned
Salem's convicted witches went to the gallows, never the stake. Here is what the 1692 court records actually say, and why the flames stuck in memory anyway.
Declassified: What the CIA Actually Admitted About Area 51
In 2013 the CIA released a U-2 program history that named Area 51 outright, after decades of refusing to confirm the base existed at all.
Declassified: The Iran-Contra Affair
Arms sold to Iran, profits diverted to Nicaragua's Contras: what the declassified record shows about the scandal that shook Reagan's White House.
Declassified: MKUltra, the CIA's Secret Mind Control Program
The CIA's MKUltra program dosed unwitting citizens with LSD for two decades. The files that survived a 1973 shredding order tell the story.
Declassified: Operation Paperclip and America's Nazi Scientists
The declassified files on Operation Paperclip: how the US recruited Hitler's rocket engineers and quietly built NASA on their expertise.
Declassified: The Pentagon Papers
The Pentagon Papers proved the government had lied about Vietnam for years. Here is what the declassified files actually document.
Declassified: The Air Force File Behind the Roswell Incident
The 1994 Air Force report on Project Mogul is the government's official answer to America's most famous UFO story. Here is what the file says.
Bhopal: The Night the Gas Leaked
A cost-cutting shutdown caused the Bhopal gas leak, releasing dozens of tons of toxic gas over a sleeping Indian city in the deadliest industrial disaster ever recorded.
The Boston Molasses Flood: When a Tank of Syrup Killed 21 People
The Boston Molasses Flood began when a steel tank burst in the North End on January 15, 1919, sending a 15-foot wave of syrup at 35 mph, killing 21.
The Chernobyl Disaster: The Night Reactor 4 Exploded
The Chernobyl disaster began when a flawed safety test met a reactor design flaw operators were never told about, causing the worst nuclear accident in history.
The Halifax Explosion: The Blast That Flattened a City
The Halifax Explosion in 1917 unleashed the largest man-made blast before the atomic bomb, killing nearly 2,000 people after two ships collided in the harbour.
The Hindenburg Disaster: Minute by Minute
The Hindenburg disaster killed 36 people in 34 seconds when the airship burned at Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937. Its exact cause is still argued over.
Tenerife: How Two 747s Collided on a Foggy Runway
A bomb threat, thick fog, and one ambiguous radio call: how two Boeing 747s collided at Tenerife in aviation's deadliest disaster.