In June 1908, a young Austrian woman named Sadie Schoen was hauled into a New York City police station and photographed twice, once facing the camera, once in profile. The charge on her card read simply: swindling. Her case is one of the ones that gave a later exhibition of these photographs its title, "Pretty Girl Charged With Clever Swindle," a phrase that says as much about how the era's press covered women's crime as it does about Schoen herself. Beyond that card, history

In the summer of 1951, a bus driver named Harvey Clark tried to move his wife and two kids into a rented apartment in Cicero, Illinois. He never spent a single night there. Instead, for the better part of a week, thousands of his new neighbours turned up outside the building to riot, and it took the National Guard, tear gas and fixed bayonets to bring the town back under control. It remains one of the largest and most well documented race riots in American history, and it hap

Poland's Second World War produced more than its fair share of stories that sound made up. There's a bear who hauled artillery shells at Monte Cassino, and then there's Krystyna Skarbek, a countess from Warsaw who skied across a mountain range with intelligence hidden in her glove linings, talked a Gestapo officer into freeing three condemned prisoners, and remains, decades on, the longest-serving female agent Britain's wartime secret service ever fielded. She went by several

Black-and-white group posing with a Tamla-Motown UK Tour banner listing The Supremes, Smokey Robinson, Martha and the Vandellas.

If you've ever sat through a forensics class, you've probably heard the story. Two prisoners, same name, same face, same measurements, at the same federal penitentiary in Kansas in 1903. Only their fingerprints told them apart, and that one mix-up supposedly killed off the Bertillon system and ushered in the age of fingerprinting. It's a great story. It's told in textbooks, FBI materials, and true crime blogs to this day. The trouble is, when you actually dig into the documen

In 1979, apprentice embalmer Karen Greenlee stole a hearse, the body inside it, and confessed to years of necrophilia in a letter meant to be her suicide note.

Rudolf Koppitz survived being shot down over enemy territory in 1917, won a bravery medal, and went on to photograph Bewegungsstudie, the most widely published image in Austrian photography. Here's his story.

On 4 July 1857, the Dead Rabbits raided a Bowery Boys clubhouse and kicked off two days of gang warfare in Lower Manhattan. Around 1,000 fighters. Eight confirmed dead. The police ran away.

Kim Philby was Britain's most damaging double agent, passing secrets to Moscow for nearly thirty years. Here's how he was finally caught, who he worked with, and what happened after he fled to Russia

Bunny Yeager shot hundreds of women whose names barely survived their photographs. The story of Dinnie Sutton, Maria Stinger, Lisa Winters, and the women history left behind.

The Bowery Boys were a nativist New York street gang who spent the 1840s and 1850s fighting Irish immigrants in the streets of Lower Manhattan. Their most infamous member was Bill the Butcher. Their politics shaped American history.

Bunny Yeager was a model-turned-photographer who made Bettie Page famous, broke into a male-dominated industry, and redefined what pin-up photography could be.

Sir Roger Casement exposed colonial atrocities in the Congo and Peru, fought for Irish independence, and was executed for treason in 1916. His sexuality became a weapon against him.

Peter Wyngarde was one of Britain's biggest TV stars until a Gloucester bus station ended it all. The full story of Jason King, the internment camp, the album, and the lies

In 1940, Eleanor Jarman escaped a 199-year prison sentence and vanished. In 2025, researchers think they found her grave in Denver, and her own family went to visit it.

The star went AWOL, the producer had never heard of Queen, and nobody agreed on what film they were making. The behind-the-scenes story of Flash Gordon (1980) is as wild as the movie.

Johnny Cash didn't just sing about the downtrodden. He showed up for them. From Native American rights to prison reform and disability advocacy, here's the full story of his activism.

How did Fred Astaire dance on the ceiling in Royal Wedding (1951)? Discover the rotating room, strapped cameraman, and brilliant engineering behind one of Hollywood's greatest illusions.

Zeudi Araya went from beauty queen in Eritrea to cult star of 1970s Italian cinema, Playboy cover girl, and the woman who helped preserve Cinema Paradiso. Her story is unlike anyone else's.

In June 1985, Hezbollah hijackers seized TWA Flight 847 and held 153 passengers hostage for 17 days. On board was Greek pop star Demis Roussos. This is the full story.

On 18 June 1984, South Yorkshire Police cavalry-charged thousands of miners at Orgreave. What followed was a frame-up, a collapsed trial, and a cover-up that went all the way to Downing Street.

On 18 June 1815, the Battle of Waterloo ended Napoleon's empire. But one of the strangest stories to come out of that day involves Henry Paget, a cavalry charge, a very calm amputation, and a leg with its own tombstone.

The Dead Rabbits were an Irish American street gang who dominated Five Points in 1840s and 1850s New York. Named after a thrown rabbit carcass, they fought the Bowery Boys, backed Tammany Hall, and helped shape the city's criminal underworld.