A collage of images relating to the horrific case of Colleen Stan and Cameron Hooker On a warm May afternoon in 1977, Colleen Stan felt confident in her ability to hitchhike safely. At 20 years old, she had already turned down two rides on her journey from Eugene, Oregon, to a friend’s birthday party in Westwood, California. But when a blue van pulled over near Red Bluff, California, she saw a man with his wife and baby in the vehicle. That, she thought, was a good sign. A fa

In the heart of San Francisco, where activism and counterculture have long thrived, an elderly woman in polyester pantsuits became one of...

The debate surrounding gun control continues to be one of the most contentious and polarising issues in the United States. Today, the...

Photography is often described as a way to freeze time, but for James Van Der Zee, it was much more than that. His images didn’t just...

There are eccentrics, and then there is Dame Edith Sitwell—an aristocratic poet, critic, and all-around formidable presence in...

Royal families have long been known for carefully controlling their public image, often keeping anything deemed unseemly out of sight. But few stories illustrate this better than the fate of Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon, two of Queen Elizabeth II’s first cousins, who spent most of their lives in an institution, forgotten by all but the hospital staff. For decades, their very existence was obscured, their deaths unnoticed by the wider world—until a 1987 exposé in The Sun  

In the dimly lit corridors of the University of Lisbon’s Faculty of Medicine, a peculiar relic sits preserved in a glass jar—a severed...

The Mitford sisters were an aristocratic anomaly: six daughters of Lord and Lady Redesdale ( Farve  and Muv  to their children), raised...

Watched by widowed First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, JFK's casket is carried aboard Air Force One for its flight from Dallas to Washington DC When the world lost President John F. Kennedy on 22nd November 1963, history was set in motion in ways no one could have foreseen. The tragedy in Dallas altered the course of American history, leaving a nation in mourning and a government scrambling to manage the logistical and political implications of an event that had unfolded in full

It’s June 26, 1978, and a film crew is preparing for the first night of what will be a gruelling two-month shoot. They aren’t on a...

For more than four decades, the man who came to be known as the Golden State Killer terrorised communities across California, committing...

In the late 1960s, in a modest office in West Oakland, a young man sat in a wicker chair with a rifle in one hand and a law book in the other. It was not a theatrical pose, although it would become an iconic image. It was a statement. For Huey P. Newton, politics was never abstract. It was lived, studied, tested, and defended on the streets of Oakland, in courtrooms, in prison cells, and later in lecture halls. His journey from a self described struggling student to co founde

Loewenstein on board a ship for a party. (right) boarding the plane he would disappear from On the evening of 4 July 1928, Alfred Loewenstein, one of the wealthiest men in the world, boarded his private aircraft at Croydon Airport. It was a routine flight—one he had taken countless times before—bound for his homeland of Belgium. The skies were clear, the aircraft, a Fokker FVII, was in good working order, and there was nothing to suggest that this would be anything but an une

In 1924, Richard Connell’s short story The Most Dangerous Game  introduced the idea of human beings being hunted for sport. The tale follows a Russian aristocrat who, bored of hunting animals, lures unsuspecting prey to his remote island to chase them down. The concept has fascinated audiences for nearly a century, inspiring books, films, and television series. But for most, the story remained firmly within the realm of fiction. Then came Robert Hansen. Between 1973 and 1983,

Few films have had as enduring an impact on horror cinema as The Texas ChainSaw Massacre  (1974). Directed and co-written by Tobe Hooper,...

On the morning of 11 May 2012, a fire tore through a house at 18 Victory Road in Osmaston, Derby, claiming the lives of six children. In the days that followed, their father, Mick Philpott, stood before cameras, flanked by his wife Mairead, appearing to grieve for his lost children. But as the investigation rolled on, it became clear that this was not the tragic accident it first seemed—it was a cruel and calculated act by Philpott himself, aided by Mairead and their friend P

Valentine’s Day is usually a time for sweet nothings, heart-shaped confections, and declarations of undying love. But if you think the most disturbing thing about modern Valentine's Day is the sheer cost of a dozen roses in mid-February, then brace yourself. Before the days of mass-produced, glossy Hallmark cards with saccharine messages, there was a golden era of Valentine’s Day cards that could best be described as mildly threatening , deeply unsettling , or simply deranged

On 7 April 1926, a slight, grey-haired Irishwoman in a black shawl fired a revolver at Benito Mussolini , the strutting, bare-chested dictator of Italy. She missed—just barely. Had Mussolini not turned his head at that precise moment, history might have unfolded quite differently. Instead, the bullet grazed his nose, leaving him with little more than a scratch and an excuse to wear a sticking plaster while embarking on a triumphal visit to Libya. Violet Gibson, however, was

Jacques Mesrine wasn’t just any criminal—he was a one-man crime wave, a walking, talking, bank-robbing spectacle who made law enforcement look like a bunch of bumbling extras in a slapstick comedy. Known as "The Man of a Thousand Faces," Mesrine was France’s most infamous outlaw, a master of disguise, and a compulsive escape artist who seemed to view prison sentences as mere inconveniences. He was the kind of criminal who would rob two banks in a single day, just minutes apar

Emma Goldman was one of history’s most fearless voices for personal and political freedom. An anarchist, writer, and feminist, she campaigned for free speech, birth control, and workers’ rights — and spent her life defying governments that tried to silence her.

It is often said that war brings out the best and worst in humanity. But in the case of Corporal Wojtek, it also brought out the best in...

It is an amusing yet historically revealing episode that, in 1940, a young Fidel Castro—yes, that Fidel Castro—decided to write a letter...