Utterly interesting

Before climate warnings and collapse documentaries, one 19th-century artist painted the entire rise and fall of civilisation on five haunting canvases. Step inside Thomas Cole’s The Course of Empire, a visual prophecy where glory turns to ash and nature always has the last word.

A tribute to Nellie Bly’s historic race around the world in 1889–1890. This collage blends portraits, newspaper clippings, and pop-art...

Jacob Riis, “Lodgers in a Crowded Bayard Street Tenement–‘Five Cents a Spot'” In 1890, a book titled How the Other Half Lives  introduced...

Winston Churchill during the Boer War, where a £25 reward was offered for his capture after his bold escape from a South African prison...

Guccio Gucci’s journey began in the Savoy Hotel in London, where he worked as a bellhop and concierge. Years later, he would open the...

A rolled up typed 'On The Road' Legend has it that Kerouac wrote On the Road in three weeks, typing it almost nonstop on a 120-foot roll...

A sample of three mugshots from the GMP Museum Today I visited The Greater Manchester Police Museum, and I can't recommend it enough. It...

A rollover during a match at Hilltop Park, New York If you've ever wondered why women live longer than men, it's reason's like this...

Portrait of W. A. Mozart by Barbara Krafft Once heard, it lingers. The soaring high C, often a rite of passage for boy trebles, has...

Lord Byron on the left and his trusted dog, Boatswain (right) When George Gordon Byron — better known simply as Lord Byron — arrived at...

Marlon Brando has his hair and makeup done as he transforms into Don Corleone in the 1972 film "The Godfather." Steve Schapiro/Getty...

A collage of Sameera Moussa photographs She once declared she’d make nuclear treatment “as cheap and available as Aspirin” — and she...

Left, a self portrait of Vivian Maier. Right one example of her fantastic street scene In 2007, a young estate agent named John Maloof ...

James Jamerson in the studio There are bass players, and then there’s James Jamerson. You might not know his name off the top of your...

In the early months of 1972, Britain shimmered under the glitter-dusted spell of Marc Bolan. With corkscrew curls, flamboyant fashion,...

The mind of Kurt Vonnegut, like the protagonist of his best-known novel  Slaughterhouse-Five , must have got "unstuck in time" somewhere...

Most people know Victor Hugo as the towering literary figure behind Les Misérables  and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame , a man whose pen...

It was just before dawn on 12 April 1980, when a group of barely-known army sergeants slipped into Liberia’s Executive Mansion and...

“Surely all respectable and law-abiding citizens are sick of the very name of ruffianism in Birmingham…” – Letter to the Birmingham Daily...

When people talk about Elvis Presley’s finest moment, they usually land on the obvious: that first explosive single in 1954, “That’s All...

On a misty morning off the coast of Nagasaki, a concrete island rises suddenly from the sea like a warship adrift in time. Locals call it...

“If you must hang somebody, then let it be me.” — Omaha’s Mayor, just before a lynch mob strung him up. That was Sunday, 28 September...