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Just after noon on 8 June 1943, the battleship Mutsu exploded while at anchor in the Hashirajima fleet anchorage in Japan’s Inland Sea, roughly two miles off the coast of the home islands. The ship broke in two and sank within minutes. There was no enemy within thousands of miles, no aircraft overhead, and the … Read more

A celebrated Confederate painting known as “The Last Meeting” depicts Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson conferring on the eve of the Battle of Chancellorsville. The oil painting, created by artist Everett B. D. Julio, originally debuted in 1869 under the title “Heroes of Chancellorsville,” during a period when the Lost Cause narrative was … Read more

In the last weeks of 1945, a 23-year-old American naval lieutenant stood in the control room of a captured Imperial Japanese Navy submarine in Sasebo, Japan, surrounded by handwritten paper tags. Every valve and switch bore a label, some in English, some in Japanese, because the American crew had no blueprints, manuals, or operating documents. … Read more

Ace Frehley, the guitarist whose silver makeup and explosive solos made him one of rock’s most recognizable figures, died in October 2025 at the age of 74. His family said he passed away after a fall in his home studio that led to a brain bleed and subsequent hospitalization. In a statement released days later, … Read more

The most famous photograph in American sports history was almost never seen. In 1964, an editor at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette looked at the image and threw it away. He considered it inadequate because it was not an action shot, just a bald man on his knees with blood running down his face. Fifty years later, … Read more

In August 1862, Justina Bolter was sitting down to breakfast with her family on their homestead near Beaver Creek in Renville County, Minnesota, about ten miles from the Lower Sioux Agency. Just minutes later, she was fleeing for her life into the timber along the Minnesota River, beginning an ordeal that would last nine weeks … Read more

The mother who raised Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reportedly repeated one piece of advice to her two eldest daughters over tea throughout their childhood: the secret to a happy life was money and power. Janet Lee Bouvier’s own life would prove far more complicated than that simple lesson suggested, spanning three marriages, four children, and the … Read more

New York City has spent decades and millions of dollars fighting its famous rat problem with limited success. Now, data suggests the rats are declining in certain neighborhoods for reasons that have nothing to do with city programs. Researchers studying urban wildlife have found evidence that an uninvited predator is thriving in the heart of … Read more