Novelist Charles Dickens championed the rights of the oppressed in his fiction, but after separating from his wife, he tried to have her committed to a mental asylum against her will.

A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros.—widely considered the most influential video game of all time—sold for $3M, making it the most valuable video game cartridge ever auctioned.

Iceberg lettuce was introduced to the world in the 19th century by a Pennsylvania seed company and became popular thanks to its durability.

Musician Gladys Bentley defied gender norms during the Harlem Renaissance and was openly gay, even though homosexuality was still widely considered taboo.

'Bonnie and Clyde,' the 1967 film starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, was the first major American movie to feature graphic violence.

Every player from a Stanley Cup-winning team has his name added to the trophy, though the NHL gradually removes older names to keep the trophy from becoming unwieldy.

David Hockney was renowned throughout the late 20th century for his colorful paintings, though later in life he drew attention for experimenting with making work on his iPad.

The cartoonist behind 'Calvin and Hobbes' refused to license his characters, leading bootleggers to create and sell their own merchandise.

Between 2002 and 2012, at least 12 people were killed in the Philippines in incidents related to off-key karaoke singing of Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.'

The Hodag was a mythological animal—part reptile, part mammal, with spikes running down its back—invented by a 19th-century Wisconsin lumberjack-turned-con-artist who claimed he'd slain one after it attacked a child.

After the bitter breakup of The Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney only played music together one more time—at an impromptu studio session in 1974, joined by Stevie Wonder.

Sidearm pitchers—who throw the ball at an odd angle, sometimes very close to the ground—are a rarity in modern baseball, which often makes them more difficult for batters to hit.

Before he appeared in a 'Star Wars' movie, character Boba Fett made his first public appearance at a sweltering small-town parade.

Painter Wayne Thiebaud's portraits of 20th-century Americana are often called 'pop art,' the kitschy movement associated with Andy Warhol that focused on commercialism and everyday objects, but Thiebaud disliked the term and the movement.

The Victor Talking Machine Company's logo, an iconic image used on early record players, was based on a painting portraying a dog mourning its dead owner.

The Jonestown cult had a youth basketball team that was away at a tournament when the group engaged in a massive ritual suicide.

The word 'serendipity' was coined by 18th-century writer Horace Walpole and is based on 'Serendip,' a historical Sanskrit name for Sri Lanka.

Explore the niche music genres, including 'Spanish synthpop' and 'South Dakota indie,' that Spotify uses to tag its music.

In 1932, Mexican artist Diego Rivera painted a series of murals in Detroit depicting the city's automotive workers and criticizing the Ford Motor Company, leading to weeks of controversy.

Check out a comprehensive guide to all 1,248 World Cup athletes that breaks down their biographies, strengths, and place in the tournament's larger narratives.

In 1980, Steven Spielberg added a scene depicting the interior of an alien spaceship to a rerelease of 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' at the studio's request, but later regretted the decision, believing it depleted the movie's enchanting mystery.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers use the same idiomatic expressions.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US win over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Brian Wilson wrote the Beach Boys' 'Don't Worry Baby' for the Ronettes, but the legendary girl group rejected it.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

The Dracula character, now seen as the vampire archetype, was inspired by a seafood-induced nightmare its creator experienced.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.