"Given the octopus' remarkable intelligence, adaptability, and diverse range of survival strategies, it wouldn't be the most ...

In the 1973 novel The Princess Bride, Buttercup and Westley are taken by surprise when they are suddenly attacked by “rodents of unusual size,” or ROUS. The book describes the beasts as a “pure rat ...

Operation Highjump was an enormous U.S. military expedition to Antarctica that began in December 1946 and ultimately lasted ...

As French troops prepared to face Ottoman forces in Rosetta, Egypt, in July 1799, they stumbled upon a chunk of carved stone. Stuck into the wall of a fort, it displayed three languages — and soon ...

In 1946, Alcatraz, the infamous prison island in San Francisco Bay, became the site of a bloody uprising that would later be known as the Battle of Alcatraz. What began as an ambitious escape attempt ...

Author Cormac McCarthy is not known for writing lighthearted novels, but for all the violence and darkness his books are famous for, few are quite so unrelenting as Blood Meridian. It was published in ...

On the day after Christmas in 1996, police in Boulder, Colorado received an alarming 911 call about a missing six-year-old girl named JonBenét Ramsey. “We have a kidnapping,” her mother, Patsy, cried.

Tickling may seem like a harmless and playful act, but it actually has a long and complex history that stretches across different cultures and eras. Its ability to immobilize and cause discomfort has ...

Sending Christmas cards is a beloved tradition that harkens back to 1843. Then, an Englishman named Sir Henry Cole commissioned the first commercial Christmas card. The card in question was designed ...

Smithsonian Magazine offers up a few other ancient creatures that could fit the bill, including Nile crocodiles, goannas, and ...

These monumental discoveries left even the experts stunned. The world of archaeology is not always as exciting as it is portrayed in films like Indiana Jones. But while researchers are rarely risking ...