Utterly interesting

Working in Hamburg’s St Pauli district, tattooist Herbert Hoffmann documented sailors, labourers, and ageing tattoos, creating a rare social record of postwar port life.

In 1908, New York briefly banned women from smoking in public. When Katie Mulcahey lit a cigarette anyway, her arrest exposed the absurdity of the law and helped bring it down within weeks. A small act that revealed bigger truths.

Joseph Colombo was not a typical Mafia boss. He led a crime family, founded a civil rights movement, confronted the FBI and was shot in front of thousands at his own rally. A detailed look at one of organised crime’s strangest figures.