One US psychiatrist at Nuremberg viewed top Nazis like Göring as normal

Some senior Nazis fled to South America and lived for decades

Using so-called "ratlines" through Spain, Italy, and into South American countries like Argentina, many of Adolf Hitler's closest associates evaded capture after the fall of Berlin in 1945. This video details the fate of eight, including infamous doctor Josef Mengele and logistics expert Adolf Eichmann.

Dreaming under the Nazi Regime

Days after Hitler seized power, a man told psychoanalyst Charlotte Beradt that he had dreamed of being forced to raise his arm in a Nazi salute ("It took me half an hour to get my arm up, inch by inch"). Beradt recorded this dream and many others so they "might one day serve as evidence." This is an English translation of her work, "The Third Reich of Dreams."

The Bauhaus artists who became Nazi collaborators

The Nazis deplored the Bauhaus style, until they found a way to use it for themselves. This deep dive explores the connection between the Nazis and three Bauhaus-affiliated designers—Franz Ehrlich, who was sent to Buchenwald and forced to design the camp's gates (seen below), Fritz Ertl, who designed the shower rooms at Auschwitz, and Herbert Bayer, who helped design Third Reich propaganda.

US secrets: Project Paperclip

The US launched Project Paperclip in 1946, covertly recruiting over 1,500 German scientists to advance American military and space programs. Among them was Wernher von Braun, a key architect of the V-2 rocket who later became instrumental in NASA’s Apollo missions. While these scientists accelerated technological breakthroughs, their recruitment raised moral debates about overlooking wartime affiliations in the name of progress—questions that remain unresolved today.

Adolf Hitler deeply admired Henry Ford, citing him as an inspiration for "Mein Kampf"

Hitler frequently praised Ford's anti-semitic viewpoints, both before and during the Holocaust. While Ford denied being sympathetic to the Nazi regime, Hitler kept a portrait of Ford on his desk, and Ford accepted the highest military award available to a foreign citizen from the Nazi government.

In 13 years, Hitler transformed a fringe sect into Germany’s dominant political force

The BBC Radio 4 podcast Nazis: The Road to Power chronicles Hitler’s meteoric rise—from fewer than 100 followers in 1910s Bavaria to absolute control by 1933—highlighting key conspiracies, political deals, brutal street violence, and forgotten figures that paved the way for Nazi tyranny.

How a Nazi leader became known as the 'living Buddha' of Nanjing

Nazi party leader John Rabe helped Chinese civilians and soldiers survive Japan’s World War II invasion, earning the title living Buddha of Nanjing, previously anglicized as Nanking. Read more about his efforts in this article.

The Holocaust was the systematic, state‑sponsored genocide of 6 million European Jews

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators implemented the “Final Solution”: a state-engineered campaign of antisemitic persecution and mass murder. By the end, two-thirds of Europe’s Jews—approximately 6 million individuals—had been exterminated through ghettos, mass shootings, and extermination camps.

Why wasn't German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm punished for starting WWI?

The accusations were explosive: a head of state had not only begun an illegal war, but egged his troops on to a series of horrific atrocities that left

How two US Presidents defined WWII and its aftermath

The National WWII Museum’s “To the Best of My Ability” podcast series delves into how Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman steered the US through World War Two.

The 1979 murder trial of Ted Bundy was the first nationally televised trial

Most of the world's known serial killers are made in America, a country with a seemingly bottomless appetite for true crime. Masses of viewers watched the trial of Ted Bundy, who admitted to killing 30 girls and women. "It was the first time serial murder and serial rape was made into live entertainment," says Joe Berlinger, director and "godfather of true crime."

Psychiatrist Bruce Greyson created a scale to identify and rate NDEs

Researcher Bruce Greyson is one of the world’s leading experts on near-death experiences. This article explores what the field of NDE research has learned over the last five decades, discusses the difficulties of studying such a controversial topic, and outlines what we’ve ruled out as the cause of these events.

How a dose of MDMA transformed a white supremacist

A man leading a faction of the US white nationalist movement took part in a psychedelic trial on the pleasantness of social touch and came away from it with his beliefs reportedly upended. He left researchers a note on a form, stating, "this experience has helped me sort out a debilitating personal issue. Google my name. I now know what I need to do."

Six of history's most unethical human experiments, from deliberate flu exposure to withholding syphilis treatment

Some of the progress made in mental health treatment, vaccines, blood transfusions, and more came about before the advent of consent and ethics committees, resulting in serious physical and psychological harm that participants in studies were not even anticipating.

A 1980 Oktoberfest bombing killed 13 people

The event was the country's deadliest domestic terror attack since World War II, killing 13 people and injuring more than 200. The perpetrator was 21-year-old Gundolf Koehler, who hoped to use the attack to usher in a conservative chancellor.

Dorothea Lange's photos of US concentration camps were censored

Lange, who took some of the most iconic photos of the 20th century, was hired by the United States government in 1942 to document the "relocation" of Japanese-Americans into concentration camps. When military commanders saw her work, however, they censored it, even suggesting some of the images should be "Impounded."

Kurt Vonnegut's satire embraced dark humor

Books like "Cat’s Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse Five" satirized the international appetite for war, which the 20th-century writer found both horrifying and hilarious. It’s a combination that some called “gallows humor,” a classification Vonnegut himself remembered Sigmund Freud describing. “One of the examples Freud gives is a man about to be hanged,” Vonnegut once recalled, “and the hangman says, ‘Do you have anything to say?’ The condemned man replies, ‘Not at this time.’”

What happens when you can't trust your therapist?

When Marty Markowitz first stepped into his new psychiatrist's office, he triggered a three-decade spiral of abuse that robbed him of his autonomy, relationships, and wealth. Markowitz isn't the only client to lay allegations of abuse at the feet of Dr. Isaac “Ike” Herschkopf, an accomplished New York practitioner with a rolodex of celebrity clients who has since lost his license to practice.

Teenager Guy Gabaldon captured the most prisoners in US military history

After the vicious battle of Saipan outside Japan in World War II, the Japanese were opting for suicide rather than surrender. Gabaldon, a Marine with a track record for skillfully convincing the enemy to surrender, managed to capture 800 Japanese single-handedly.

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.

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.

In 1978, lower courts ruled that neo-Nazis had the right to march through Skokie, Illinois

Skokie was home to a large community of Holocaust survivors, making the planned march an extreme test of First Amendment principles. The courts ultimately ruled that even deeply offensive speech remains protected by the Constitution.

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.

35% of polled Americans said they'd view people differently if they knew they had a mental illness

In April 2025 polling, mental health remained highly stigmatized in the US. Though 88% of US adults say a mental health disorder is nothing to be ashamed about, 84% of them think the term "mental illness" carries a stigma and only about half of respondents said they'd feel comfortable sharing their mental health struggles with others.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Who was Freud and what did he say?

Sigmund Freud is one of the most famous psychologists and is widely cited—but do you really know the basics of what he taught? Here's a super brief breakdown of his major insights.

Nine eyewitness accounts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors

Japan's Hiroshima and Nagasaki became the first cities in history to be hit with nuclear weapons, where tens of thousands of civilians were killed nearly instantly. Hundreds of thousands of people who survived the bombings—referred to as hibakusha—dealt with wounds, radiation poisoning, and alienation from a society unable to process what had happened. This collection of accounts lets nine of those survivors speak, including one of the 165 survivors of both bombings.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

The Great Depression was an international depression felt far beyond the US

Many countries suffered through a depression in the 1930s that the First World War, the US stock market crash, and an economic downturn in Germany turned into an international crisis.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

About 12.5% of US adults experience a phobia in their lifetime, a diagnosis that hinges on the intense fear interfering with daily life and persisting for at least six months.

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.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

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, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

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.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Hookworm infection, though risky, may help fight certain autoimmune conditions by tamping down the immune system's inflammatory response.

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.