Financial hardships forced functionality into every piece of Marie Curie's wardrobe

Marie Curie's work with radioactive materials left traces on her furniture and notes

Some of Marie Curie's family heirlooms were radioactive and destroyed. Marie and Pierre Curie are entombed in lead coffins to block radiation.

Claire's has filed for bankruptcy multiple times

Between competition from online retailers such as Shein and Temu, and too many physical stores for today's retail climate, Claire's has had a difficult time modernizing.

Cassatt participated in a fundraiser for women's suffrage against her family's wishes

The painter took part in a 1915 charity exhibition in support of women's right to vote. That offended some of her family members, especially her sister-in-law, who were opposed to the cause. In response, Cassatt sold works that had originally been designated for them.

30,000 men known as the 'League of Broke Husbands' once protested Dior's luxury fashion designs

In the 1940s, these men living in post-war France were angry about the waste and cost of the fabric needed to make its luxury clothing. Today, Dior is owned by luxury conglomerate LVMH.

Women's wartime suit features silk dyed with CRISPR-modified bacteria

Anna Dumitriu's bioart piece was created to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the first use of penicillin in a human patient and intends to raise awareness about the rapid development of antibiotic-resistant pathogens by using bacteria that have essentially been transformed into their pre-antibiotic era state.

Le Crueset's France factory makes 10,000 of its $400 cast-iron pots each day

After nearly going bankrupt in the 1980s, the company expanded its color options and product line to boost sales—something that's also fueled the brand's fanaticism. The Le Crueset Dutch oven was among Julia Child's kitchen staples, and the 2009 hit "Julie & Julia" reintroduced Child's famous Dutch oven to a new generation, resulting in a sales boom.

Camus grew up in poverty

Albert Camus' father died when he was less than a year old, leaving his mother, a cleaning woman, and his grandmother to raise him in a poor neighborhood of Belcourt (now Belouizdad). It was an experience he'd reflect on in his unfinished autobiographical novel, "The First Man."

The Wright brothers' sister hyped their work, and was the only one to attend college

Katharine Wright became the de facto household caretaker after their mother, Susan, died, when Katharine was 15. After graduating from Oberlin, Katharine took over household duties so her father and brothers could work. She promoted their work in the US and abroad.

Austen grew up as a member of the 'pseudo-gentry'

Her family grew up near the upper crust of society, but was never fully of it; at times, the family struggled to make ends meet. Austen scholar Dr. Lizzie Rogers said this made her part of the "pseudo-gentry," a contemporary term naming a respected group that still fell short of the aristocratic "landed-gentry." Rogers believes that perspective informed the writer's novels, which often dealt with social conventions.

One New Yorker saved $1,600 during her 'no-buy January'

A social trend in recent years encourages participants to buy essentials only for the month (an abbreviation of the even more radical no-buy year). Hannah Marder gave the fast a go, fastidiously dividing her purchases into wants and needs and managing to save roughly $1,600 over the month.

Medieval European winters were colder than ours, but peasants stayed warm

Medieval winters were colder than ours today while the continent was mired in the so-called Little Ice Age. Without modern technologies, peasants survived with simple, sometimes genius, solutions, including central, chimney-less fireplaces (vented by small, draftless vents) and decorative handwarmers.

View a gallery of 3D printed clothing

Many 3D printed garments represent wearable art where technology meets couture. Despite their appearances on runways since Iris van Herpen's pioneering top at Amsterdam Fashion Week in 2010, mainstream adoption has been limited due to high costs and reduced comfort when compared to fabric-based apparel.

How Marie Kondo packs for vacation

Marie Kondo is famous for her organizational style, a form of minimalism that emphasizes utility and practicality. It's a philosophy that translates to packing for travel. In this interview, Kondo walks through several tips, including packing a suitcase vertically, stashing spare tea bags, and keeping a notebook handy.

ABBA wore outlandish costumes on stage for tax reasons

Sweden's beloved musical group ABBA wore outrageous costumes designed to take advantage of a tax break for work uniforms. The law stated that people could deduct expenses for work clothing, as long as it couldn't be worn for other purposes.

Women lost legal rights after the revolution, despite educational gains

The revolution rolled back women's legal protections, including the Family Protection Law, and imposed the mandatory hijab. Paradoxically, women later achieved significant educational gains, with university enrollment and literacy rates dramatically improving.

Explore the material culture of socialist Cuba

Even the objects of everyday life were politicized under socialism. This catalog of Cuban artifacts, collected between 1959 and the fall of the Soviet Union, reveals how revolutionary values infiltrated the most ordinary of items—from cocktail coasters to cologne.

Thomas and Anne Rogers were famous counterfeiters in 17th-century England

The pair used a practice called “coin clipping,” shaving the edges off silver coins to decrease their weight before sending them back into circulation. When banknotes rather than coins gained popularity, counterfeiting methods evolved—in the 1700s, an early banknote counterfeiter named Mary Butterworth created counterfeit paper money using starched cloth and a hot iron to transfer the pattern of a banknote onto paper.

Opera faces many economic problems today

Opera is a notably expensive art form, and therefore currently struggling to survive economically. Pandemic losses, reduced government funding, and dwindling ticket sales all pose a threat to its continuation. According to a recent survey, about half of the UK wouldn't feel impacted if all opera houses were shut down.

Usonian design was invented as a response to Americans’ financial struggles

Around the time of the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, Frank Lloyd Wright sought to create homes that made life easier for those struggling financially. Usonian homes are typically characterized by simple materials, small square footage, and natural light.

J Lo's infamous green dress at the 2000 Grammy Awards led to Google Images

Marie Claire rounded up some of the wildest, most infamous Grammys controversies, ranging from wardrobe malfunctions to ill-gotten awards. See events like Kanye and Taylor reconciling, Adele having mic issues, shocking wins, and other historic moments.

Long-lost sisters meet for the first time and accidentally show up in the same dress

Two women aged 51 and 63 discovered they were sisters after taking a 23andMe test. Both born in Russia, the siblings immigrated to the US around the same time. When the time came to finally meet, they coincidentally arrived wearing the same outfit.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

In 1924, the department store Marshall Field's invented the first modern 'wedding registry'

However, there were many traditions around wedding gifts before the wedding registry was invented, too—from dowries to marriage chests. Read about the history of the wedding registry in this article.

'I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.'

- Martha Washington (1731-1802)

Grace Hopper warned against prioritizing hardware purchases in future computing

Foreseeing the rising volume of data and the increasing demand for its processing and access, she advocated that organizations first map the total flow of information they require and then choose infrastructure to support it, rather than wastefully spending on the fastest computing technology and forcing software to compensate for unnecessary hardware or incorrect data.

The 1939 film changed Dorothy's slippers from silver to ruby

Baum’s original book listed the slippers as silver, but the filmmakers wanted the shoes to pop on film—and highlight their use of Technicolor—so they turned them ruby. The slippers wound up becoming one of the movie’s most iconic elements.

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.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

About 2,000 US babies are born annually without some portion of their limbs, potentially leading to a lifetime of pricey prosthetics.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

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.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

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

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.