See the list of alleged communists Orwell gave to the British government

Why Orwell fought in the Spanish civil war

Orwell wanted to volunteer for the International Brigades, a loose conglomerate of leftists fighting against Franco's Nationalists, in order to participate in what he saw as a struggle against fascism. The group rejected him, though Orwell still made his way to Barcelona to fight with a smaller sect, an experience that's laid out in this history from William Chislett.

Read Orwell's original preface to 'Animal Farm,' criticizing the publishers who had rejected the book

Orwell's opening remarks for the 1945 publication chastised the publishers who'd rejected the manuscript, even quoting one of them directly who said they weren't interested in offending the Soviet Union, a British ally. The essay was not included with the book, though it appeared several decades later, after Orwell's death, in the Times Literary Supplement.

George Orwell, avid outdoorsman

The writer is often pigeonholed as either a cranky paranoiac or a self-righteous scold, but this essay by Danny Heitman explores a lesser-known side of Orwell's personality: his love for nature, something that's subtly expressed in some of his greatest works.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The FBI investigated John Steinbeck, believing he might be a communist.

How Orwell's time in Myanmar influenced his writing

Orwell joined the Indian Imperial Police in Myanmar (then Burma, a British colony) in 1922, at 19. In her introduction for Orwell's debut novel, "Burmese Days," Emma Larkin unpacks how Orwell's five years working there shaped the book and informed his politics, especially his negative view of colonialism.

How a sick George Orwell finished '1984'

The writer worked on the novel while living in a remote cottage in Scotland. While he was there, he was in a boating accident that sent him overboard, eventually leading to a fatal bout of tuberculosis. Orwell finished the novel (and massive revisions) while trying to recover. He died in 1950, at 46.

Poet Robert Lowell was once convinced communists were invading an artist colony

In 1949, the Pulitzer winner accused Elizabeth Ames, director of the Yaddo artist colony in Saratoga Springs, New York, of colluding with Agnes Smedley, a journalist who'd been staying on the property for years and who was working on a project sympathetic to communist causes.

Why Orwell called Dalí a 'disgusting human being'

Writer George Orwell took offense at the disturbing actions described in Dalí's salacious autobiography "The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí." In a 1944 essay, Orwell described the cruelty and moral degradation of Dalí—while also admitting the artist's undeniable talent.

Sartre eventually denounced communism

The French philosopher was a long-time ardent supporter of communism and the USSR. He finally spoke out against the movement with the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, saying that the move was "made possible by 12 years of terror and imbecility."

The exile and return of Charlie Chaplin

In 1952, amid accusations of communist ties and a threatened reentry ban during the Red Scare, Charlie Chaplin left the US and chose exile in Switzerland. Two decades later, he returned to accept an honorary Oscar, receiving a 12-minute standing ovation—the longest in history.

The term ‘McCarthyism’ was coined by a political cartoonist

In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy infamously proclaimed that he had a list of communist State Department employees. The next month, cartoonist Herbert Block published a cartoon in the Washington Post featuring a reluctant elephant (the mascot of the Republican Party) being pushed to stand on a wobbly tower labeled “McCarthyism.”

Camus died in a car crash, which some believe was orchestrated by the KGB

Albert Camus died in 1960, at the age of 46, after his publisher's car crashed into a tree. Italian author Giovanni Catelli, however, alleges that what appeared to be an accident was actually an assassination by the Soviet spy agency as a way to silence the French writer's anti-Soviet beliefs.

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

From exploding cigars and poisoned Cohibas to an infected scuba suit and plans to drug a TV studio with LSD, this account catalogs the CIA's strangest—and consistently unsuccessful—attempts to kill Fidel Castro over decades.

Who were the Cambridge Five

Recruited in the 1930s, the Cambridge Five infiltrated British intelligence and leaked secrets to the Soviets for decades, shaping WWII and the Cold War.

The mysterious details of Stalin's death

The 73-year-old dictator of the Soviet Union died March 5, 1953, officially from a stroke, on top of nearly a decade of significant medical issues. But evidence suggests the longtime leader might have been poisoned less than a week before at an intimate gathering of Stalin's closest confidantes and advisors. Explore the current evidence for Stalin's alleged murder here.

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

How famous writers chose their pen names

From Joseph Conrad to JK Rowling, writers employ pseudonyms for all kinds of reasons. How they find those pseudonyms, however, depends on the individual.

Churchill’s 1946 ‘Iron Curtain’ speech warned of growing Soviet domination

In a 1946 speech, Winston Churchill declared that an “Iron Curtain” had descended across Europe—dividing East from West. The address marked one of the first public acknowledgments of the emerging Cold War and coined the term that would define the conflict.

A teenage Dickens found work as a political journalist

Dickens found work as a reporter for the Mirror of Parliament, a weekly newspaper focused on the British legislature. After a few years, he moved to the Morning Chronicle, where he began producing his creative work. Professor John Drew, author of "Dickens, the Journalist," said that the writer "realized he could wield a much more direct, if not more glamorous kind of power, by using his position as a leading writer of fiction and a magazine editor."

Unpacking Thoreau's diet, which once included a woodchuck

The writer's diet was notoriously simple, preferring an inexpensive combination of rice and vegetables to meat, though he usually ate it when offered. In "Walden," he mentions eating a woodchuck after it got into his beans, which one Thoreau biographer said was likely true.

'Keep Calm and Carry On' was long-forgotten World War II propaganda

The British Ministry of Information developed the stoic phrase ahead of German attacks at the start of World War II in 1939. It was never officially released on posters and then lay dormant until 2000, when one of the remaining posters was discovered at a bookstore in the UK. It has since been adapted into countless memes.

In the 1980s, excerpts from fake diaries of Adolf Hitler were published in a prominent German magazine

Excerpts from the diaries were published in other publications around the world, like The Sunday Times, despite uncertainty about their authenticity. After forensic analysis, the diaries were proven to be fake. The diaries were produced by Konrad Kujau, a petty criminal who frequently produced counterfeits.

The identity of the Tank Man from the Tiananmen Square protests is still unknown

The lone figure standing before military tanks in Beijing is an essential component of this iconic photograph. The protests resulted in the deaths of hundreds of demonstrators, possibly including the man himself. There's also the chance he returned to normal life as a citizen and purposefully concealed his identity.

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.

Computer pioneer Alan Turing was also an elite runner

Alan Turing is credited with helping to found modern computer science, in addition to cracking the Nazi code known as Enigma. Beyond these world-historical achievements, the British mathematician also nearly represented his country in the Olympics in the marathon, running just 11 minutes slower than the eventual gold recipient at the 1948 games. Read more on this lesser-known aspect of the man here.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

Twain claimed to possess 'mental telegraphy'

In an 1891 essay, the writer claimed to possess psychic powers. It’s something that seemingly supported by his mother and his own death: Twain predicted he would die the day after Halley’s Comet returned in 1910, which did indeed happen.

Hollywood’s best scandals

With all the money, power, and beautiful people in Hollywood, it’s no wonder there’s no shortage of scandals. This list highlights 10 of the most salacious ones, from Marilyn Monroe’s affair with then-president John F. Kennedy, to the mysterious death of starlet Natalie Wood in 1981.

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.

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.

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.

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

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

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

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

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.

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.

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

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

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.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

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.

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

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.