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The treasure has been missing for almost a century, but there may finally be a break in the case. The tale of the Romanov treasure is almost as famous as the ill-fated Romanovs themselves. The Romanov family, the last of the Russian royalty, were infamously executed after being imprisoned in their home by the revolutionaries. Before their excommunication by the Soviets, the family enjoyed an extremely comfortable life in the Alexander Palace....

Police charged Mark Barnes and Angela Wamsley with concealing a death in December 2020, but it took a curious duck to actually find the body of Wamsley’s missing grandmother. For years, investigators in Candler, North Carolina, wondered what had happened to 92-year-old Nellie Lucille Sullivan, who they suspected had been killed by her granddaughter and her husband. But for all their investigation, it took a pet duck to find her body....

From partying to marrying a commoner, Princess Margaret’s brazen antics forced the British Crown to rethink some of its rules — and paved the way for modern royals to live more freely. Princess Margaret — the outspoken, fun-loving younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II — was one of the first British royals who dared to go against what was expected of her. Some have gone so far as to dub her a trailblazer who modernized the royal family itself....

As seen from these POW images, not all of war’s worst victims die on the battlefield. When Everett Alvarez Jr. signed up for the U.S. Air Force in 1960, he didn’t imagine that he would become the first and nearly longest-held American prisoner of war in Vietnam; he just wanted to fly. Share Flipboard Email Alvarez, the son of two poor Mexican immigrants, had just graduated as an engineer from Santa Clara University and hoped his service in the Air Force could be a stepping stone to becoming an astronaut....

Salon Kitty started as an ordinary brothel — then turned into a Nazi-run spying operation used to seduce secrets out of foreigners and catch disloyal Germans. ullstein bild via Getty ImagesThe location of the new Salon Kitty rebuilt after the original was bombed, as seen after World War II. Located in a wealthy area of Berlin, Salon Kitty started as just your run-of-the-mill high-end brothel. But during World War II, it became much more than that....

In October 1994, Susan Leigh Smith of South Carolina strapped her boys into her car, drove it straight into John D. Long Lake, and then tried to blame it all on a Black man. Starting at a very early age, Susan Smith suffered unspeakable tragedy. Her father killed himself when she was just six years old, and she tried to follow suit at age 13. After her mother remarried, Smith’s new stepfather began to molest her....

Police believe the man became stuck after falling into the sculpture head-first while trying to retrieve his phone. He had been there two days before someone found him. Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty ImagesA local photographing the monument, now the site of a tragedy — with flowers left behind in tribute. Earlier this month, Spain ended its national state of emergency and eased lockdown and curfew restrictions. People took to the streets in celebration....

Every year at the end of August, the village of Dunoon quadruples in size. Why? To celebrate the Cowal Highland Gathering. Source: Keep Your Eyes Qide Dunoon is a small, unassuming town in Scotland with a population of just 8,300 people. However, one weekend per year, at the end of August, that population triples or even quadruples in size. That’s because for over a hundred years the town has hosted the Cowal Highland Gathering, the biggest Highland Games event in Scotland....

After their parents’ relationship ended, the twins were separated and began two very contrasting lives. LA TimesOskar Stohr, left, and his brother Jack Yufe. When Jack Yufe and Oskar Stohr met in 1954, they were 21 years old. They were meeting at a train station in West Germany, though neither of them was particularly looking forward to it. At the station, Yufe noticed a man approaching him, one who was familiar to him despite never having met....

See the heartbreaking Kevin Carter photos, including that of the vulture and the starving child, that led to him committing suicide at age 33. Warning: Some photos in this article are graphic. Kevin Carter’s most famous photo, The Vulture And The Little Girl. When this photograph capturing the suffering of the Sudanese famine was published in the New York Times on March 26, 1993, the reader reaction was intense and not all positive....

Cleopatra’s perfume discovered, hidden da Vinci sketch found under iconic painting, Soviet message in a bottle washes ashore after 50 years. Researchers May Have Recreated Cleopatra’s Perfume Thanks To 2,000-Year-Old Residue Wikimedia CommonsMarc Anthony meeting Cleopatra. After centuries’ worth of paintings and sculptures, we have a pretty good idea of what Cleopatra, the storied ruler of ancient Egypt, looked like. But now, we may also know what she smelled like....

The 49 rooms unearthed in the subterranean city of Matiate make up only three percent of its estimated total area. Anadolu AgencyThe city held places of worship, storage silos, water wells, and dozens of limestone tunnels. The Turkish town of Midyat has such a rich history that it practically serves as an open-air museum. Now, archaeologists have discovered a completely different history hidden beneath the foundations of the ancient town — the world’s largest underground city....

Not only did Pennsylvania godfather Russell Bufalino supposedly hire Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran to murder union leader Jimmy Hoffa, he may have also tried to assassinate Castro. The Bufalino crime family has long ruled the underbelly of Pennsylvania and New York with its most prominent godfather being the infamous Russell Bufalino. Also known as “The Quiet Don,” Bufalino made his mark as one of the most powerful and low-profile leaders of the American Mafia in the mid-20th century, undoubtedly inspiring more than one fictional adaptation of his life....

Despite drowning her five children in the bathtub in 2001 after suffering a psychotic break, Andrea Yates now lives at a low-security psychiatric facility, where she is free to leave anytime. Yates Family/Getty ImagesRussell and Andrea Yates with four of their five children (left to right): John, Luke, Paul and Noah. On the morning of June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned her five children in the family’s bathtub. Then, she called 911 and waited for the police to arrive....

Thanks to one anonymous tipster, a woman and two children are now free after two long years. The occupants of the small white house in the 3600 block of Mine Road in Spotsylvania County, Virginia hadn’t been heard from in quite some time. Finally, about a week ago, a concerned local called sheriffs, who then went to check things out. When they arrived, they were greeted by Kariem Ali Muhammad Moore, a 43-year-old man who seemed reluctant to let them in....

The mud-brick temple discovered in Abu Ghurab dates back to the mid 25th century BCE and is likely one of six sun temples mentioned in ancient Egypt inscriptions. Chanel Wheeler/Wikimedia CommonsThe sun temple of the Egyptian pharaoh Nyuserra covered a much older one. Thousands of years ago, a great pharaoh in Egypt ordered the construction of a sun temple. But the sands of time — and the political will of his successors — buried it in the desert....

From why they use Viagra to why we once drank their urine, these panda facts reveal everything you never knew about nature’s most mysterious bears. Newborn cubs are blind, helpless, and only about the size of a stick of butter.Flickr (left), Flickr (right) At 1/900th the size of its mother, a newborn panda is one of the smallest newborns, relative to its mother’s size, on Earth.Flickr Pandas can grow to be 2-3 feet tall at the shoulder, 4-6 feet in length, and up to 250 pounds....

Artist Alexa Meade’s background isn’t actually in art of photography, but you’d never guess it if looking at her work. Alexa Meade In true opposition to many great classical painters, Alexa Meade doesn’t hope to recreate reality in her paintings; she wants to paint reality (re: people) and then flatten it so it takes on an “artificial”, painted appearance. If it sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Basically, Meade transforms three-dimensional subjects–be they people, food or other objects–to two-dimensional “works” through paint, and then flattens them by photographing them....

Source: Loup D’argent Long before YouTube, Facebook or even MTV’s genre-spawning “Real World,” when Andy Warhol coined his now-prescient phrase “fifteen minutes of fame,” he believed that technology and culture would merge to deliver everyone a moment of personal superstardom. But he couldn’t have known that some people would earn their notoriety by exposing the misery and sickness of living in chaotic clutter. Source: Traffic Magazine Source: Wikimedia Nevertheless, it’s doubtful Andy would have been shocked by a TV show like today’s “Hoarders....

Flickr CommonsA statue of Annie Moore and her two brothers stands in the Irish harbor they departed from. Seventeen-year-old Annie Moore and her siblings left their native Ireland in 1891 to reunite with their parents in the United States after a separation of four years. Annie and her two younger brothers departed from Queenstown, Ireland on Dec. 20, 1891 and spent Christmas at sea during their 12-day journey. Although there was nothing about the Moore siblings that particularly distinguished their story from those of the thousands of other immigrants to United States in the late 19th century, there was a unique surprise in store for them in America that would seal Annie’s place in history....