During the Middle Ages, a shocking legend emerged that a woman named Joan successfully disguised herself as a man, rose through the Catholic hierarchy, and ruled as Pope for over two years.

On February 22, 1940, six heavily armed German destroyers sliced through the freezing waters of the North Sea, hunting for enemy vessels.

Long before modern antibiotics and pain relievers became standard treatments, patients sought cures in unconventional places. In 17th-century Europe, doctors routinely prescribed a specific ingredient to treat everyday ailments: human flesh.

In 1942, young Naval Ensign John F. Kennedy fell into an intense romance with Inga Arvad, a Danish journalist with a past that caught the immediate attention of the FBI.

In the mid-19th century, a trespassing pig wandering into an American farmer’s potato patch on a disputed island nearly ignited a massive war between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Fourteen years before the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic, an American author published a novella describing that exact scenario.

In 1901, a fire station in Livermore, California, installed a standard hand-blown light bulb.

In November 1944, a silent and unguided weapon took to the skies from the coast of Japan, embarking on a 6,000-mile (9,656-kilometer) journey across the Pacific Ocean to strike North America.

During the 1960s, a construction crew restoring the roof timbers of a 17th-century farmhouse in southern Germany pulled a small wooden stick from the rafters.

Collecting a steady paycheck for six straight years without performing a single task sounds impossible inside a modern government office.