How Did Kissing Begin? Why Do People Kiss, and Who Started It?
Kissing is one of those human activities that seems perfectly normal until someone describes it without the romantic filter. Two people bring their faces together,…
How Were Clandestine Abortions Performed in the Past?
For much of history, ending a pregnancy could mean entering a hidden world of coded advertisements, whispered recommendations and improvised treatment. The experience varied widely:…
Why People Are Afraid of Clowns: History, Psychology, and Pop Culture from Pagliacci to “Terrifier”
Adult entertainment, not kids’ fare: what the circus looked like in the 19th century A clown wasn’t always “the lady with a balloon.” In the…
Seven (Still) Overlooked Women Without Whom Our World Would Be Different
And why we still don’t learn enough about them Many women’s names in history have been reduced to a handful of “required” icons. But that’s…
Hetty Green: the “Witch of Wall Street” — or simply a misunderstood ascetic?
As a woman who managed to amass hundreds of millions of dollars in the male-dominated world of stock trading, Hetty Green still captures the imagination…
This Is How the “Witch Hunts” Unfolded in What Is Now Slovakia: Cases, Verdicts, and the End of Executions
Witch-hunting was not exclusively a “medieval” oddity—its peak came only in the early modern period. Across Europe, tens of thousands of people (especially women) fell…
A mystery that still fires the imagination: what really happened at Dyatlov Pass?
On the night of February 1–2, 1959, a tragedy unfolded on the eastern slope of Kholat Syakhl in the Northern Urals—one that still fascinates and…
History and Homosexuality: Tradition Is Older Than Your Prejudices
A different sexual orientation is not a 21st-century fad. The diversity of human sexuality appears in sources throughout history—only the labels and the lens have…
Nikola Tesla: A Visionary Among Lightning, Inventions, and Enduring Myths
When a lamp lights up in your living room tonight, a sound notification pings through wireless headphones, and an electric motor opens your garage door,…
Gloria Ramirez: the woman whose body killed six healthcare workers after her death
Riverside, California, February 19, 1994. An ambulance arrives at the emergency room with 31-year-old Gloria Ramirez—a mother of two, a perpetually smiling volunteer at the…
