Jerusalem had changed since the time of Jesus. For example, Jesus’ crucifixion was described as taking place “near the city” and “outside the gate,” indicating that it happened outside of the city ...

Caesar’s adopted son and heir Octavian ultimately emerged victorious in the ensuing power struggles, and in 27 B.C.E., he took the new name Augustus and became Rome’s first emperor. With that, the ...

The Ark of the Covenant is first mentioned in the Book of Exodus, when God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites to build an ark (a chest) out of “acacia wood” that is “two and a half cubits long, a ...

Tickling may seem like a harmless and playful act, but it actually has a long and complex history that stretches across different cultures and eras. Its ability to immobilize and cause discomfort has ...

To understand how dragons have become so pervasive, we should first look at some specific examples of cultures that believed in dragons throughout history. In China and the British Isles, for instance ...

While the Los Angeles Mafia never rose to the same notoriety as its counterparts in New York and Chicago, the crime family infiltrated Hollywood, had a hand in the growth of Las Vegas, and terrorized ...

Also known as white exodus, white flight describes the migration of white people away from racially diverse cities and towns in America. In 1950, the South Shore neighborhood of Chicago was 96 percent ...

The Amityville Horror House is the site of one of America’s most popular ghost stories. The home’s dark reputation dates back to 1974, when Ronald DeFeo Jr. fatally shot his parents and siblings in ...

Though the Kraken has long been a fixture in Scandinavian lore, one of the first descriptions of the beast in writing came from Francesco Negri. An Italian priest and travel writer, Negri described ...

Most historians agree that Plato used the story of the lost city of Atlantis as a cautionary tale, an entirely fabricated allegory illustrating how easily a utopian society could fall from grace.

Off the coast of New Zealand is a deep oceanic rift known as Bounty Trough, a name that is seemingly well-earned — as it recently supplied scientists with a bounty of new discoveries in the form of ...

One of history's most famous — and bloodthirsty — legendary creatures, vampires have terrified human beings for centuries. In 1892, a group of frightened villagers in Exeter, Rhode Island gathered at ...