Past Imperfect

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The Copper King’s Precipitous Fall

Augustus Heinze dominated the copper fields of Montana, but his family's scheming on Wall Street set off the Panic of 1907

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The Blazing Career and Mysterious Death of “The Swedish Meteor”

Can modern science determine who shot this 18th century Swedish king?

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The Unknown Story of "The Black Cyclone," the Cycling Champion Who Broke the Color Barrier

Major Taylor had to brave more than the competition to become one of the most acclaimed cyclists of the world

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The Ugliest, Most Contentious Presidential Election Ever

Throughout the 1876 campaign, Tilden’s opposition had called him everything from a briber to a thief to a drunken syphilitic

David Curtis Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, 1922

“Murder Wasn’t Very Pretty”: The Rise and Fall of D.C. Stephenson

The Grand Dragon of the Klan and prominent Indiana politician had a vicious streak that had horrifying consequences

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The Neverending Hunt for Utopia

Through centuries of human suffering, one vision has sustained: a belief in a terrestrial arcadia

The Smoothest Con Man That Ever Lived

"Count" Victor Lustig once sold the Eiffel Tower to an unsuspecting scrap-metal dealer. Then he started thinking really big

Starfish Prime 0 to 15 seconds after detonation, photographed from Maui Station, July 9, 1962.

Going Nuclear Over the Pacific

A half-century ago, a U.S. military test lit up the skies and upped the ante with the Soviets

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The Demonization of Empress Wu

"She killed her sister, butchered her elder brothers, murdered the ruler, poisoned her mother," the chronicles say. But is the empress unfairly maligned?

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The 1904 Olympic Marathon May Have Been the Strangest Ever

In 1904, St. Louis hosted the Olympic Games as part of the World's Fair—and produced a spectacle that incorporated all the mischief of the midway

Fanny Blanker-Koen crosses the finish line to become the first triple champion of the 14th Olympic Games.

How Fanny Blankers-Koen Became the 'Flying Housewife' of the 1948 London Games

Voted female athlete of the 20th century, the runner won four gold medals while pregnant with her third child

A basilisk–a lethally poisonous monster hatched from a cock’s egg–illustrated in a mediaeval bestiary. Note the weasel gnawing at its breast; only they were impervious to basilisk venom.

On the Trail of the Warsaw Basilisk

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Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed

The Transcontinental Railroad connected East and West—and accelerated the destruction of what had been in the center of North America

Countess Markievicz in uniform with a gun, circa 1915

Daughters of Wealth, Sisters in Revolt

Gore-Booth sisters, Constance and Eva, forsook their places amid Ireland's Protestant gentry to fight for the rights of the disenfranchised and the poor

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The Woman Who Took on the Tycoon

John D. Rockefeller Sr. epitomized Gilded Age capitalism. Ida Tarbell was one of the few willing to hold him accountable

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Quite Likely the Worst Job Ever

A British journalist provides us with a window into the lives of the men who made their living from combing for treasures in London's sewers

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The High Priestess of Fraudulent Finance

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The Loneliest Shop in the World

Publicity photo for The Son of the Sheik

The “Latin Lover” and His Enemies

Rudolph Valentino fought a long battle against innuendo about his masculinity right up until he died. But now he seems to have won

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The Ax Murderer Who Got Away

In 1912, a family of six was murdered by ax in the little town of Villisca, Iowa. Might these killings be linked to nine other similar crimes?

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