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When Judy Garland died of a drug overdose after struggling with addiction at age 47 in 1969, many were sad but few were surprised. Unfortunately, how she died was all too similar to how she lived. “I’m always being painted a more tragic figure than I am,” Judy Garland said in 1962. “Actually, I get awfully bored with myself as a tragic figure.” But in the summer of 1969, her tragic legacy was cemented with her untimely death....

Nicknamed the “Black Cyclone,” Marshall Taylor defied all the odds when he won the title of World Cycling Champion in 1899. Gallica Digital LibraryMarshall Taylor ca. 1906-1907. Few people in sports have achieved as many accolades as Marshall “Major” Taylor, and even fewer have done it while facing the violent stream of racism that Taylor endured. Despite this, Marshall Taylor became the first African-American cycling world champion. His color-barrier breaking athletic achievements have cemented his name in the sporting history books, however, the story of his triumphant and tragic life remains relatively untold....

From protesting the Vietnam War to founding the Youth International Party, Abbot Howard “Abbie” Hoffman became one of the most iconic activists of the New Left. Abbie Hoffman was one of the most passionate and eccentric American political activists of the 1960s. He fought social injustice, nurtured the country’s antiwar movement, and highlighted political corruption — and he did it in style. While some of Hoffman’s protests were more traditional, he was never afraid to orchestrate the outlandish to attract an audience....

Previously unknown human ancestor found, the Zodiac Killer’s ciphers potentially solved, a Black World War II veteran finally awarded the Purple Heart. Scientists Discover A Previously Unknown Human Ancestor — With Giant Teeth And No Chin Tel Aviv UniversityPieces of a Nesher Ramla Homo skull, which was discovered in Israel. First found in 2010 near Ramla, Israel, these prehistoric fossils have mystified experts for over a decade. But now, they’ve finally figured out what they’re looking at: a previously unknown human ancestor....

Girl pulls ancient sword from lake, researchers uncover identity of New York mystery mummy, lasers reveal hidden Maya structures. 8-Year-Old Girl Pulls 1,500-Year-Old Sword Out Of Swedish Lake JÖNKÖPINGS LÄNS MUSEUMThe 1,500-year-old sword. An eight-year-old girl stumbled upon a 1,500-year-old sword while out swimming in Vidöstern lake near her family’s summer home. Swedish-American Saga Vanecek was “throwing sticks and stones” while out in the lake when she what she described as “some kind of stick....

Legend has it that in times of persistent hardship, Japanese families would abandon their elderly in the woods. Here’s how it happened — that is, if it did at all. Wikimedia Commons The practice of Ubasute marks a dark time in Japan’s history, but did it ever really happen? Ubasute’s supposed roots reach far back into Japan’s distant past, and the event it describes is as cruel as it is chilling....

As the son of America’s most infamous cult leader, growing up wasn’t easy. Fortunately, Valentine Michael Manson became his own man and assumed a new identity as Michael Brunner. Before the 1960s came crashing down with the Sharon Tate murders of 1969, Charles Manson had established an impressive following of loyal devotees. He called this band of delusional outcasts his “family” — but the infamous cult leader had actual children of his own....

These giant worms originate in Southeast Asia and some species can grow to be two feet long. Sébastien SantWildlife officials in Virginia were dumbfounded by an unusual “snake” that was later identifed as a giant hammerhead worm. In early November, officials from Virginia Wildlife Management and Control came across something they had never seen before: a slithering creature that looked like a snake with an odd hammer-shaped head. The agency shared a photo of the slinking animal on their social media page....

Of all the things that threaten humankind, Stephen Hawking thinks that trash and human stupidity are the greatest. In a recent Larry King Now interview, the famous theoretical physicist said that over the past decade, “we have certainly not become less greedy or less stupid” in the ways in which we treat our environment. He added that population booms are at least in part to blame for the state of our natural world — and that he has been saying this for some time now....

Though some of our presidents were notorious teetotalers, quite a few of them sure knew how to party. Wikimedia Commons As it should be, the title of the President of the United States is an honorable one to hold. It brings to mind (or at least, it used to) distinguished men, who put on a respectable face for the public. But, it turns out, during some administrations the White House may as well have been a frat house....

From its anti-immigrant origins to the Nazi-esque salute children used to make while saying it, this is the dark history behind the Pledge of Allegiance that you didn’t learn in school. Library of Congress Students pledging allegiance to the flag in New York. 1943. Written more than 100 years ago and formally adopted by Congress in 1942, the Pledge of Allegiance has seen more than its fair share of controversy over time....

By analyzing DNA found in Canadian soil samples from thousands of years ago, scientists have adjusted the timeline of the woolly mammoths’ extinction by 8,000 years. Wikimedia CommonsAnimals like the woolly mammoth left trace amounts of DNA in frozen soil. When did the woolly mammoth go extinct? Scientists have long believed that woolly mammoths died out some 13,000 years ago. But a new study suggests that they survived much longer....

From the cannibalistic Wendigo to the dragonlike Hydra, these mythical animals and creatures have terrified people across the world for centuries. Every culture has its own monster and each one tells its own story about what haunts or scares us. Mythological creatures are in essence the manifestations of our biggest fears. The stories our ancestors left behind about the heroes who conquered mythological creatures weren’t just stories, they were insights into how we wished to take some control over an ancient world that was often overwhelming or overpowering....

From bowel movements to rigor mortis, here’s what’s in store for your body after the sweet release of death. Wikimedia CommonsA toe tag on a dead body in the morgue. Everyone dies. It’s just a matter of time. How each person bites the big one differs, of course, but what happens to your body when you die? Take a look at seven fascinating things that happen to your body after you take your final breath....

The bloody story of the Battle of Blair Mountain, America’s largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. Lewis Hine/Library of CongressWorkers stand at the entrance to a West Virginia coal mine. In February 2017, Fortune wrote about a viral Twitter prompt from sociologist Eve Ewing: Among dozens of “eye-opening” responses in this “crowdsourced curriculum,” Fortune identified The Battle of Blair Mountain, the largest domestic armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War (and one waged in the heart of what some now call “Trump Country”)....

At most, 19-year-old Briana Harmon of Texas will receive probation. Denison Police DepartmentBreana Harmon Talbott On March 8, 2017, Breana Harmon Talbott walked into a church in Denison, Texas bloodied and half-naked. She then told church staff that she had just been kidnapped and raped by three black men. The news quickly sparked outrage, much of it racially-motivated, from some publishers and social media users. But after two weeks, with her story unraveling, Talbott admitted to police that she’d made the whole thing up....

Between 1926 and 1930, Elizebeth Friedman decoded 20,000 messages per year in hundreds of different code systems. Even more incredibly, she decoded them all in a time without computers. Elizebeth Friedman would never have thought that her love of Hamlet and Macbeth would lead her to a life of fighting smugglers and Nazi spy rings. But that’s exactly what happened to the Indiana native. When she left college in 1915, she got a job at the Newberry Research Library in Chicago due knowledge of Shakespearean plays....

From poisoning to a government ploy, many of the theories about how Brittany Murphy died are as bizarre as they are sinister. Though the sudden death of Brittany Murphy was initially ruled as a terrible though natural twist of fate, the sheer shock of her demise led many to suspect foul play. The rising starlet found fame as the innocent ingénue in the 1995 hit film Clueless, and that role catapulted her into other cult classics like Girl, Interrupted, Riding In Cars With Boys, and Uptown Girl....

Despite facing the conservative culture of 1980s Iran, Maryam Molkara helped convince the nation’s leader to make sex reassignment procedures legal — a legacy that remains to this day. Kaveh Kazemi/Getty ImagesMaryam Khatoon Molkara convinced Iran’s highest religious leader to allow gender confirming surgery. Maryam Khatoon Molkara made history in the 1980s when, as a transgender woman, she secured a religious decree from conservative Iran’s highest authority to officially allow gender reassignment surgery for herself — and for other trans people in her country....

The tribunal reporting to the United Nations found evidence of forced organ harvesting of prisoners from the banned Falun Gong religion and the Uighur Muslim minority, among others. Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty ImagesProtesters hold a reenactment of China’s alleged forced organ harvesting. A special tribunal formed to investigate long-time allegations that the Chinese government has been harvesting organs from ethnic and religious minorities has come forward with damning evidence. As reported by the Independent, the China Tribunal’s final report stated that detainees of the government who belonged to minority groups were “killed to order… cut open while still alive for their kidneys, livers, hearts, lungs, cornea and skin to be removed and turned into commodities for sale....