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Tokyo, Japan

Ikebukuro Shimento Pagoda

Dedicated to the victims of a phantom slasher, this memorial is claimed by some to be the source of a deadly curse.
Marm Mandelbaum, who ran her own school for criminals, is among one of many women making history in all the wrong ways.
crime

Women’s Wrongs: Our Favorite Reads

You can champion women’s rights and still revel in the tales of their most infamous wrongs.
Roxanne Hoorn February 21, 2025
The neuroscientist’s brain is brownish and small, but is otherwise virtually unchanged from the 1800s.
anatomy museums

A Man in 19th-Century Italy Preserved His Own Brain to Fight Eugenics

Visit Turin to see the organ—and learn how to preserve your own.
Dania Rodrigues February 18, 2025
Rebecca Bradley (left) was labeled a flapper bandit by the media, and a woman who had lots her mind by her attorney (right).
crime

Meet the Texas Flapper Bandit

A bank robber or a lightning rod for America's growing fear of independent women—who was Rebecca Bradley?
Laura Niebauer January 14, 2025
Northampton, Massachusetts

Northampton Bank Robbery Mural

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stop thieves at the site of a historic 1876 bank robbery.
Art detective Arthur Brand has recovered scores of stolen works of art, including Picasso's 'Buste de femme (Dora Maar),' which is worth about $30 million.
art

Art Detective Arthur Brand Is Like Indiana Jones but With a More Elegant Wardrobe

Mysterious late-night visits, an undercover hunt for Hitler's horses, and a Picasso on the couch are business as usual for the Dutch sleuth.
Nina Strochlic November 19, 2024
This map of Poyais from the 1820s fooled hundreds of people.
objects of intrigue

This Map Shows a Fictional Country Created by a Con Man

In the 19th century, Scottish scammer Gregor MacGregor made a fortune selling land in Poyais.
Diana Hubbell October 31, 2024
This 1882 engraving of Ragnarok, the Viking doomsday, shows Odin mounted on a horse and fighting the wolf Fenrir.
vikings

7 Stories That Show Just How Metal the Nordics Are

From Viking werewolves to snacking on pickled ram's testicles, Europe's northernmost countries are badass.
Roxanne Hoorn September 27, 2024
To those uneducated in chemical processes, Glazier’s work with metals looked more like magic than science.
crime

How the Alchemist of New England Became a Legendary Counterfeiter

Glazier Wheeler turned his skill for manipulating silver into profitable schemes.
Ryan Shea August 6, 2024
Plymouth, Connecticut

Lock Museum of America

Explore the world's largest collection of locks, keys, handcuffs, and ornate hardware, and crack the code on an antique-filled escape room.
Fountain, Colorado

John Spicer's Confession

The resolution to a case that had gone cold for 120 years, found on an old piece of wood.
West Bridgewater, Massachusetts

Hockomock Swamp

Tales of ghosts, cryptids, and true crime rise from the murky waters of the largest freshwater wetland in Massachusetts.
Omaha, Nebraska

The Museum of Shadows

Haunted dolls, macabre artifacts, and more make up the collection of the “most haunted museum in the world.”
museums

Podcast: Bonnie and Clyde Ambush Museum

A small town museum remembers where the infamous—but often misunderstood—couple’s story ended.
The Podcast Team May 13, 2024
Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, September 2014
islands

Wonder Is Everywhere: A Giant Burger, a Missing Warhol, and More From Around the Web

Get a peek into what we’re obsessed with right now.
April White April 12, 2024
An adaptation of Banksy’s “Flower Bomber,” this image shows a librarian throwing Margaret Atwood’s <em>The Handmaid's Tale.</em>
libraries

6 Badass Librarians Who Changed History

They will not be shushed.
April White April 5, 2024
Okavango Delta, Botswana - August 2, 2022. Western Tourists travelling in a mokoro, along the delta. This type of travel is traditional among the locals of the delta.
museums

Wonder Is Everywhere: Harlem Renaissance, the Return of the Ruby Slippers, and More From Around the Web

Get a peek into what we’re obsessed with right now.
April White March 29, 2024
Rose Mackenberg believed in something beyond the world we see—but she didn't believe the mediums who said they were in touch with it.
crime

The Ghost-Busting 'Girl Detective' Who Awed Houdini

As an undercover investigator, Rose Mackenberg unmasked hundreds of America’s fake psychics.
Nina Strochlic March 14, 2024