The story of how blow-up dolls came to be is a fascinating one. It is a story of cotton, straw, and rubber, a story of loneliness, pent-up sexual frustration, and unrequited incestual desires. It is also, perhaps, the only story that links 17th-century European sailors, Austrian bohemians, the Nazi Party—and Barbie!

In 1942, a now-classic image of a young woman in a red-and-white polka dot bandana appeared on a U.S. government-issued war poster. And thus Rosie the Riveter was born, an icon of the American can-do spirit and a persevering symbol of feminism, representing the millions of women who took on jobs typically held by men while the men were off fighting the war.

He was an able diplomat who successfully managed to ward off several deadly diseases and hold a vast empire in decline; yet, he’s mainly remembered today as the frail king with the Habsburg jaw, the final offspring of centuries of aristocratic inbreeding. It’s time to reappraise the legacy of King Charles II, the last Habsburg ruler of the Spanish Empire.

In 1680, Juan Carreño de Miranda—Charles II of Spain’s court painter—produced two portraits of Eugenia Martínez Vallejo, an extremely obese 6-year-old child. They earned her the moniker “la Monstrua,” the Monster. She was really just sick.

Originating in 15th-century Spain, limpieza de sangre was a racist legal concept and a complex caste system developed as a way to discriminate between the Old Catholics and the newer Christian converts of known or presumed Jewish or Muslim heritage (conversos and Moriscos).