In the late 17th century, a financially desperate and politically isolated Scotland decided to risk an astounding one-fifth of its entire wealth on a massive gamble: establishing an ambitious trading colony in the unforgiving jungles of Panama.

In April 1912, an allegedly unsinkable British ocean liner traveling at 23.6 miles per hour collided with a massive block of ice in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Dr. Daniel Kenigsberg bought a vacant plot of land in Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1991. For over thirty years, the half-acre (0.2-hectare) parcel sat completely empty, covered in trees.

On a spring evening in 1884, the ground of New York City shook under the weight of an unprecedented parade.

Buried beneath the volcanic ash of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, the library of Herculaneum was completely carbonized.

Between the 15th and 17th centuries, a highly unusual psychiatric disorder emerged among the wealthy and educated classes of Europe.

Beneath the murky waters of Georgia’s largest manmade reservoir lies a history filled with displaced communities, unmarked graves, and a staggering number of fatalities.

A wealthy London merchant who once attended a French royal coronation deliberately chose to spend the rest of his life refusing to wash.

In the summer of 1917, two young cousins living in the English village of Cottingley borrowed a camera and returned with a photograph that captured the world’s attention.

In 17th-century France, a teenager disguised in men’s clothing broke into a convent, stole a deceased nun’s body, and set a room ablaze to escape with the woman she loved.