Possibly my favorite English football fun fact: The Story of Ali Dia

Pelé is one of soccer's most famous players

He’s one of history’s most famous soccer players: Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé. This piece follows the Brazilian soccer legend through various public appearances and interviews, highlighting the commercialization of his image and his own reflection on a life of stardom.

England's sole World Cup win featured a 'ghost goal'

The 1966 match is known for Geoff Hurst's controversial third goal—called a "ghost goal." Watch the original footage, including the legendary call from announcer Kenneth Wolstenholme, and decide for yourself if the ball went in.

How the American takeover of world football failed.

What happened behind the scenes at Europe’s top clubs as their Super League plans were pitched and ripped apart in a matter of days

An interactive dive into the history of international women's soccer

Despite evidence it has been around just as long as men's, international support and recognition for women's soccer was long delayed for various reasons. The National Football Museum collects artifacts and oral histories on the history of soccer...

Five happy hour stories from around the world

If you need some fun facts to make conversation at your next office happy hour, look no further than this video. It includes five stories about pub life, from a look inside a company that turns tap handles into works of art to a search for the oldest pub in the world.

Athletes are captured in moments of victory and defeat in 6 powerful sports images

See shots like Muhammad Ali knocking out Sonny Liston in 1965, or Brandi Chastain after winning the World Cup final in 1999.

The popular myth behind the India pale ale

Legend has it that the beer style earned its name in the late 1700s and early 1800s, when one brewer realized he had to add more alcohol and hops to his beers to survive the long boat ride to India. But as this essay by one beer historian makes clear, the facts don't line up with that myth.

Camus was a soccer goalie as a teenager

The writer played for Algiers Racing University but had to quit after contracting tuberculosis. He remained a fan, though, once suggesting that the game taught him important lessons about morality. In the 1957 interview below, he briefly reflects on his time as a goalie and speaks about his recent Nobel Prize.

Talese’s story on Joe DiMaggio examined the sports star’s life post-retirement

The profile, written in the aftermath of his popular “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” similarly offered a close look at an American icon after their prime. In DiMaggio’s story, however, the Yankees player seeks to vanish into obscurity and live a quiet life, golfing and mourning his ex-wife Marilyn Monroe.

The Shed at Dulwich was a fake restaurant that became the top-rated eatery in London

In 2017, freelance writer Oobah Butler conducted an experiment in which he created a website claiming that his south London garden shed offered a unique fine-dining experience. Butler asked friends to write glowing reviews on Tripadvisor, made the restaurant open only by appointment, and allured audiences with mystery. As a result, hordes of people called and emailed to make a reservation at a restaurant that didn't exist.

'The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.'

- Boxing champion Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

A British Airways pilot mapped every flight of his career into a data art series

James Harding logged every flight he had flown in a software program and rendered the results into 3D globe animations, charts, graphs, and more. You can view the visualizations here, along with career stat breakdowns and a description of his project.

The creator of Sherlock Holmes published a book claiming fairies were real

In 1917, two young girls took photos of one another appearing to interact with fairies and a gnome. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books and a fervent believer in spiritualism, published the photos in a magazine and asked the girls to recreate them, which they did. Conan Doyle went on to write a book about the fairies. In 1983, decades after his death, the girls admitted the photos had been faked.

Reflections from Ben Giles, history's greatest stain remover

Starting out as a freelance window cleaner, the British cleaning legend started taking on jobs cleaning out people's garages and shacks. He soon realized people would pay top-dollar to have their worst messes cleaned up by someone else.

The forgotten Larry Bird punch that almost changed everything

Larry Bird biographer Keith O'Brien argues March Madness as we know it today began in 1979, with an electric, raucous game that's largely been forgotten. Thankfully, he's dredged up the details (and the footage) to help us relive it.

Robert Browning memorialized the marathon myth in a 19th-century poem

The story of Pheidippides is not likely true, but that hasn’t stopped the story from spreading. Much of that is thanks to Robert Browning, who enshrined the myth for a new generation in a 1879 poem that described the man dying after delivering word of the victory.

Dozens of common phrases are attributed to Shakespeare

His clever wordsmithery infiltrated English, from “Neither rhyme nor reason” to “In my heart of hearts.” This article lists nearly two dozen of his best-known phrases.

A funeral director lied and claimed he discovered a centuries-old Roman brooch

An amateur metal detectorist knowingly deceived thousands into believing he found an 1,800-year-old horse figurine. He received payment for the artifact to be featured in a museum, but he later admitted he bought the brooch online and planted it.

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

Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman

The name change was just one facet of his self-created myth. From the moment he arrived in Greenwich Village’s folk scene, he was crafting tall tales about his life, including a claim that he'd spent the previous six years working for a carnival.

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

Stonehenge, explained

Located about 90 miles west of London, Stonehenge was built around the same time as Egypt’s Great Pyramid. Its 30-ton stones have fascinated archaeologists and historians for centuries, making it one of the world’s most studied prehistoric sites.

Null Island: the most real fictional island you can almost visit

This article explores Null Island, which can be found on most maps at exactly 0° latitude and 0° longitude. If someone were to paddle out to those coordinates, they'd find themselves in front of a buoy named Soul off the west coast of Africa. User...

Listen to a podcast exploring reported UFO and alien sightings

From the most shocking accounts of abductions and UFO sightings to an interview with a Harvard professor about these claims, dive into fascinating stories about run-ins with ETs that have continued to be told for decades.

College football bowl games boast some of sports’ most absurd names

From the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl to the Pop-Tarts Bowl, college football’s postseason is filled with quirky, sponsor-driven names.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

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

An estimated 49 million people played fantasy football in 2022

The number, estimated by the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association, has grown exponentially since the start of the century. While fantasy sports in general are popular, football is the most popular, with an estimated 79% of fantasy participants playing fantasy football.

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.

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.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

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.

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

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

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

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.

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 the same idiomatic expressions.

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

Learn more about the history of fireworks, which dates back to an accidental invention during an alchemist's quest for information about immortality.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

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

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.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'

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.

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.'

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

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