Utterly interesting

The Putumayo rubber boom promised fortune but delivered horror. Armando Normand’s reign in the Amazon was marked by cruelty, forced labour, and violence against Indigenous communities. This forgotten genocide exposes the dark side of progress and the human cost of greed.

In 1987, 23-year-old Kenneth Parks drove 14 miles while sleepwalking, killed his mother-in-law, nearly strangled his father-in-law, and then turned himself in while covered in blood. He had no memory of it, and in 1992, was acquitted after experts confirmed he was asleep the entire time.

She fought for civil rights, mentored Muhammad Ali, and shattered racial barriers — but in 1965, Alberta Jones was murdered, her body thrown into the Ohio River. Decades later, her case remains unsolved.

In 1979, Thai prisoner Ginggaew Lorsoungnern faced the firing squad for her role in a child kidnapping. Her execution went horrifically wrong — her rare heart condition meant the first volley failed, forcing a second. This is the haunting story of her final day.

"There were five bodies. Two children with their skulls blown apart. A mother riddled with bullets. A father beaten and shot, left...

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...

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

“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...

On a quiet Sunday in October 1983, the Laitner family home in Dore, an affluent suburb of Sheffield, had been filled with joy. They were...

In 1929, long before the Galapagos Islands became synonymous with eco-tourism, conservation cruises, and Instagrammable marine iguanas,...

If you ever find yourself romanticising the glitzy outlaws of the 1920s, spare a thought for Arthur Barry, a polite burglar whose life...

Most career criminals make headlines for their violence or brash defiance. Jeffrey Manchester, however, earned his notoriety by being unfailingly polite, oddly considerate, and for living in places most people would never dream of calling home. Nicknamed “Roofman” by baffled detectives, Manchester’s story is a study in improbable break-ins, makeshift hideouts, and a charm that left even his victims scratching their heads. From Schoolboy to Soldier Jeffrey Manchester grew up i

In the autumn of 1998, a tragic act of violence in suburban New York captured the growing tension at the heart of America’s abortion...

It’s often said that Chicago built its empire on the backs of immigrants and the muscle of men willing to do what others wouldn’t dare....

In the early summer of 1982, Roberto Calvi, chairman of Italy’s largest private bank, Banco Ambrosiano, vanished from the intricate world...

In the 1970s, Lawrenceville, Georgia, was hardly the sort of place you’d expect to see splashed across national headlines. It sat about...

On a crisp Saturday morning, 11 December 1926, the quiet farming community of Buda, Texas — some fifteen miles south of Austin —...

In the quiet hours before dawn on 13 June 1977, the peaceful summer routine at Camp Scott in Mayes County, Oklahoma, was shattered by a...

Frankie Yale was the dapper Brooklyn mobster who showed a young Al Capone how to run rackets, collect debts, and build a criminal empire. From speakeasies and bootlegging to betrayal and gangland murder, Yale’s story reveals how the American Mafia learned to mix business with brutality.

On 15 September 1963, the Ku Klux Klan bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four Black schoolgirls. The attack shocked the nation, galvanised the civil rights movement, and revealed the deadly cost of racism in America. Read the full story of tragedy and justice.

“What I want is an off-the-shelf sex partner. Slave. There’s no way around it.” — Leonard Lake It started, as so many grim tales do, with...

In the early summer of 1921, Tulsa, Oklahoma, was a place of contradictions. It was a city on the rise, oil-rich, bustling with new...

In the early years of the Cold War, the CIA dreamed of a Caribbean sweep, one bullet for Trujillo, another for Castro. Only one found its...

In the summer of 1968, as children ran barefoot through the derelict streets of Scotswood, a working-class neighbourhood in Newcastle...