In the final days of World War II, an extraordinary battle unfolded in the heart of the Austrian Alps. French prisoners, American GIs, and German soldiers fought side by side against the SS in a desperate struggle to defend a medieval castle. This is the story of the Battle of Castle Itter.

Meraki has a rich and diverse history, from ancient Greek medicine to Ottoman Turkish dictionaries, and even in Slavic folk poetry. It is now commonly linked to finding pleasure in one’s work. Interestingly, it originally meant quite the opposite: ‘spleen.’

On September 7, 1978, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was waiting at a bus stop in London’s Strand when he felt a sharp jab in his leg. Little did he know that he had just become the victim of a sophisticated assassination involving an iconic Cold War weapon: the umbrella gun.

The Hasanlu Lovers are a unique archaeological find: two ancient skeletons from a doomed city, locked in a tender embrace long after their deaths. The revelation that they were both male has sparked controversy and debate.

In 1184, during the resolution of a land dispute in Erfurt, dozens of German nobles met a grisly end when the floor collapsed beneath them, plunging them into a lake of human excrement. More than 60 of them drowned in the latrine, and the future Holy Roman Emperor barely escaped with his life.

John Harvey Kellogg was a Seventh-Day Adventist who believed that self-gratification was the sin of all sins. But did he invent cornflakes as a sort of anti-masturbatory meal? A sticky question, for sure, and one we just have to flake…

The 19th-century children’s book Der Struwwelpeter is a fascinating collection of illustrated tales about misbehaving children and their horrific punishments. While these stories would be considered highly inappropriate for today’s children, they have greatly influenced modern children’s literature, comic books, and pop culture.

On July 28, 1945, in response to the Potsdam Declaration demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender, Japanese prime minister Kantarō Suzuki uttered a now-famous phrase: mokusatsu-suru. The phrase can be translated to mean either “ignore” or “no comment.” The Allies heard the former. The atomic bombs were dropped several days later.

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, fin de siècleAustrian bohemians, the Nazi Party—and Barbie!

For more than two centuries, young Italian boys were castrated to preserve their pre-pubescent singing voices. They became hotly sought-after in church choirs and operas around Europe. This is the story of the castrato singers.

Until just recently, there lay, inside the Enjuin Temple in Asakuchi, Japan, one of the most intriguing mummies in the world. It was not of an ancient human or an animal, but of something in between, something which should ostensibly exist only in legend: a mermaid.

Every English student knows The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope’s mock-heroic satire of the social mores of 18th-century British gentry. What fewer people know is the model Pope used: Alessandro Tassoni’s 1622 masterpiece, La secchia rapita. Its subject is quite an unusual historical event—a 14th-century war fought over a stolen bucket!

The Ancient Egyptians were the first to use perfumes, but it wasn’t until 1888 that the first commercial deodorant hit the shelves. For decades it was just a niche product until a genius ad campaign made it a necessity in the early 1920s. Now, it seems like we can’t go a day without wearing the stuff!

In 1932, tens of thousands of World War I veterans peacefully converged on Washington to demand cash bonuses they weren’t scheduled to receive for another 13 years. What they got instead was a violent clash with the US Army. This can happen here. It already did.

Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 22, 1944, the GI Bill of Rights was designed to provide federal benefits for returning World War II veterans. It gave them the opportunity to attend college and get low-interest loans to buy homes; it gave the country something more: hope and dreams of equality.

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.