Wu Zetian’s rise to power was as dramatic as it was controversial. Married first to Emperor Taizong as a concubine and later to his son Emperor Gaozong, she became empress in 655.

Ota Benga was born around 1883 among the Mbuti people of the Congo Free State.

On July 12, 1979, Comiskey Park in Chicago became the site of one of the most infamous promotions in Major League Baseball history.

When Germany invaded Denmark in April 1940, Niels Bohr faced an unusual problem. Inside his Institute of Theoretical Physics in Copenhagen sat two gold Nobel Prize medals that did not belong to him.

In Poznań, Poland, the safety of drinking water rests in the shells of eight mussels.

In the late 19th century, a haunting photograph captured two men in bowler hats standing atop a towering pile of bison skulls.

The story of The Seeing Eye began in the 1920s, when American dog breeder Dorothy Harrison Eustis moved to Vevey, Switzerland.

In Colombia’s war on drugs, one dog became so effective that a powerful cartel put a price on her head.

In nineteenth-century Britain, Parliament passed laws that placed heavy burdens on workers and the poor. The Master and Servant Act of 1823 criminalized breaches of labor contracts by employees.

Steve Jobs is often remembered for transforming technology with Apple products like the iPhone, iPad, and Macintosh.