Tucked between towering mountains and a deep fjord on the Alaskan coast sits Whittier — a town of a few hundred people that functions unlike anywhere else in America. Nearly all of its residents live in one place: a single... Read more
In 1932, farmers in Western Australia had a serious problem. Around 20,000 emus — large flightless birds standing up to six feet tall — had migrated into the wheat-growing districts after breeding season. The birds trampled crops, devoured grain, and... Read more
In 1901, sponge divers working near the small Greek island of Antikythera discovered an ancient shipwreck loaded with treasures: bronze statues, jewelry, coins, and fine glassware from around the first century BC. Among the spectacular finds, one object attracted almost... Read more
In 1912, a rare book dealer named Wilfrid Voynich purchased a stack of old manuscripts from a Jesuit college near Rome. Among them was a small, unassuming volume of roughly 240 pages that would go on to become the most... Read more
In the spring of 1925, Victor Lustig read a newspaper article in a Paris café. The story explained that the Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 World’s Fair and never intended to be permanent, was becoming expensive to maintain —... Read more
If you survive one shipwreck, that’s luck. Two shipwrecks? An incredible coincidence. But what if you lived through accidents on all three of the most famous sister ships in history — and walked away from every one of them? Violet... Read more
On November 23, 1942, the British merchant ship SS Benlomond was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Atlantic Ocean and sank within minutes. A 25-year-old Chinese sailor named Poon Lim found himself alone in the water with a life... Read more
In 1942, in Iran, a unit of Polish soldiers bought an orphaned brown bear cub from a local boy. They named him Wojtek — a name meaning “happy warrior.” Wojtek started out as the unit’s mascot, but he quickly became... Read more
In December 1997, a 23-year-old woman named Julia “Butterfly” Hill climbed a giant redwood tree in California — a tree roughly 1,000 years old and 180 feet tall. Her goal was simple: to stop a logging company from cutting down... Read more
In July 1518, a woman known as Frau Troffea suddenly began dancing in the streets of Strasbourg. There was no music. There was no joy on her face. She simply danced — for hours, then for days. Within a week,... Read more