Of all the uncertainties in life, death is one of the few things, if not the only one, that is certain. (Some people don’t pay taxes, after all.) Sooner or later, barring some wild advances in medical science, everyone reading this will die. We typically either cremate or bury the deceased, based on religious and

For many years, the public didn’t know where The Simpsons lived. Yeah, we knew the setting was Springfield. But in which state? Not only was the Springfield mystery location used for a number of jokes over the years, the show’s writers constantly flirted with the city’s exact location through conflicting descriptions, obscured map locations, and

Everyone makes mistakes. Maybe you forgot to buy milk at the grocery store, or perhaps an important e-mail to your boss went off with a glaring typo in the subject line. At least you can rest assured that life’s little mishaps rarely lead to much greater calamities. Some mistakes, however, are so colossal that they

We all know World War II was complex; that’s part of what makes it a world war. But three quarters of a century on, it’s all too easy to forget some of the more complicated details of the conflict. People like a simple, black-and-white narrative—Allies vs. Axis, good vs. evil—but reality is rarely as straightforward

It is often stated that only two things are certain in this world: death and taxes. One often-overlooked fact about the death-and-taxes phrase is that “taxes” is in plural form while “death” is in singular form. The reason is obvious, though. We die once but pay taxes over and over. Most of the time, we

It was already a war crime to use chemical weapons when World War I began. Every major country had signed a convention agreeing not to use them. But when the fighting began, the treaties meant nothing. Chemical warfare was an everyday horror of war. Men huddled in the trenches, watching for the creep of gas

Slavery is rightfully known as one of the worst evils ever perpetrated against men (and women) by their fellow men. Millions are spent every year on public education about the African slave trade that lasted from the late 16th century until the late 19th century. Although less known, the Arab slave trade in East Africa

It’s one of the most popular conspiracy theories, largely because a lot of the claims have at least partial facts to them. Some believe that events of the 20th century, in particular the two global conflicts that left millions upon millions slaughtered and changed the face and direction of the entire planet, were not only