Crime

Estimates of the number of Pacific Islanders captured by blackbirders and forced to work on cotton and sugar plantations in Fiji and Australia range from 61,610 to more than 100,000.

How 'Blackbirders' Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders Into Slavery After the Civil War

The decline of the American South's cotton and sugar industries paved the way for plantations in British-controlled Fiji and Australia, where victims of "blackbirding" endured horrific working conditions

The stone marked with the name "Ebenezer Scrooge" is located in a graveyard at St. Chad’s Church in Shrewsbury, England.

Vandals Destroy Ebenezer Scrooge's Fictional Tombstone Featured in a Film Adaptation of 'A Christmas Carol'

Located in an English churchyard, the stone was inscribed with the name "Ebenezer Scrooge" for the 1984 movie. Police are investigating the vandalism, which occurred earlier this month

Italian authorities have recovered several Etruscan antiquities stolen by tomb raiders from a burial site in central Italy.

Italian Police Arrest ‘Clumsy’ Tomb Raiders Who Allegedly Posted Stolen Etruscan Artifacts on Facebook

The items include artistic urns, a bone comb and an ancient sarcophagus with a full skeleton inside

A painting of the capture of Blackbeard on November 22, 1718

How British Authorities Finally Caught Up to the Most Notorious Pirate in History

On this day in 1718, the Royal Navy attacked and killed Blackbeard, also known as Edward Teach, off the coast of North Carolina

The laptop that belonged to Chris Janczewski, former IRS-CI agent

A Federal Agent’s Laptop Held the Keys to Seize $3.6 Billion in Stolen Bitcoin. Here’s How It Ended Up at the Smithsonian

Soon to be on display at the National Museum of American History, the laptop is the centerpiece of a criminal case that shows an evolving understanding of cryptocurrency

On September 4, 1967, six identical silver disks appeared at equidistant locations along a plumb-straight line that bisected southern England.

How British College Students Convinced Authorities That Flying Saucers Were Invading the U.K.

To raise awareness for a charity event, aspiring engineers planted six UFOs across southern England on a single day in 1967

Officers display the weapons used in the November 15, 1959, killings of the Clutter family.

Inside the Brutal Murders That Inspired a Foundational Work in the True Crime Genre

Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" documented the killings of a family of four in rural Kansas on this day in 1959

Prints from Warhol's Reigning Queens series ahead of a 2021 Christie's sale. These portraits depict the United Kingdom's Elizabeth II and Denmark's Margrethe II.

When Art Thieves Stole Four Andy Warhol Prints, They Didn't Realize Only Two Would Fit in the Getaway Car

The robbers only made away with two of the screen prints, which they swiped from a gallery in the Netherlands. They abandoned the other artworks on the street

A white mob poses outside of the razed office of the Daily Record, a Black-owned newspaper in Wilmington, North Carolina, on November 10, 1898.

When White Supremacists Staged the Only Successful Coup in U.S. History

The 1898 Wilmington massacre left dozens of Black North Carolinians dead. Conspirators also forced the city's multiracial government to resign at gunpoint

The Princeton University Art Museum is one of the many prominent institutions tied to Almagià, who graduated from the university in 1973.

A Prominent Italian Dealer Has Been Charged With Trafficking Thousands of Looted Artifacts

The Manhattan district attorney's office has obtained an arrest warrant for Edoardo Almagià, who has been accused of working with looters and dealing stolen artifacts for years

Relatives of James Chaney, a Black man killed for his voting rights activism, at his funeral in 1964

These Black Americans Were Killed for Exercising Their Political Right to Vote

In the Jim Crow South, activists became martyrs at the hands of white racists, all for the just cause of using the vote to fight for equality and freedom

The rats let their handlers know when they've found something by tugging on a ball attached to the front of their custom vests.

These Giant, Vest-Wearing Sniffer Rats Could Help Combat the Illegal Wildlife Trade, Scientists Say

Researchers trained African giant pouched rats to detect commonly smuggled items, including rhino horns and elephant tusks

If a reader stared at one of Spectropia’s illustrations under a strong light source for about 20 seconds and then gazed at a blank wall in a darkened room, a version of that image in inverted colors appeared.

This 19th-Century 'Toy Book' Used Science to Prove That Ghosts Were Simply an Illusion

"Spectropia" demystified the techniques used by mediums who claimed they could speak to the dead, revealing the "absurd follies of Spiritualism"

John Larson's original polygraph, a gift to the Smithsonian from the Berkeley Police Department, where Larson was the first rookie cop with a PhD.

Why the Creator of One of the First ‘Lie Detectors’ Lived to Regret His Invention

The early polygraph machine was considered the most scientific way to detect deception—but that was a myth

The researchers examined eight Iranian swords in their study.

These Iron Age Swords Were Smuggled Out of Iran and Modified to Increase Their Value on the Black Market

Using advanced imaging techniques, researchers discovered modern glue, drill holes and even a fragment of a drill bit in the pastiches

Bord de Mer (Seaside), Claude Monet, circa 1865

A Rare Monet Painting Has Been Returned to the Family of Its Rightful Owners—Eight Decades After It Was Stolen by the Nazis

The Gestapo seized the Impressionist painting from storage after its owners fled from their home in Vienna. Now, the piece has been returned to their granddaughters

Andy Warhol made 46 copies of this print depicting Vladimir Lenin.

The FBI Recovers an Andy Warhol Print Worth $175,000 That Vanished From a Private Home in 2021

A man is expected to plead guilty for trafficking the print, which reappeared at a Dallas auction house shortly after it went missing from a California residence

The Marco Polo sheep is a subspecies of argali, the largest living wild sheep.

Montana Rancher Who Created Giant, Hybrid Sheep Sentenced to Six Months in Prison

Arthur “Jack” Schubarth cloned illegally imported genetic material from the Marco Polo argali to create hybrid sheep that would draw higher prices from hunting preserves

An image of the famous Sycamore Gap tree before it was illegally cut down in 2023

One Year After England's Famous Sycamore Gap Tree Was Illegally Felled, a New Exhibition Honors Its Legacy

The show coincides with an initiative that will give away 49 of the tree's saplings to individuals and communities across the country

These ornate ear studs from the kingdom of Tabanan were among the 288 artifacts returned to Indonesia.

The Netherlands Has Returned 288 Stolen Artifacts to Indonesia

The Dutch seized the majority of the items in the aftermath of a brutal 1906 conflict that killed an estimated 1,000 Balinese

Page 1 of 35