A harrowing journey through Alaskan waters in an ancient tugboat.

A Marxist archaeologist uncovers traces of fugitive slave settlements deep in the Great Dismal Swamp.

How “Count” Victor Lustig, one of America’s great con men, worked his scams.

The true story of the first Thanksgiving.

A short but comprehensive history of solanum tuberosa.

“It’s an old book!” Harper Lee told a mutual friend of ours who’d seen her while I was in Monroeville. “But if someone wants to read it, fine!”

On spending your life among large felines.

In 1936, Karp Lykov whisked his family into the Siberian wilderness to escape Bolshevik persecution. They remained there, alone, until discovered by a helicopter crew in 1978.

A segregated housing development washed away in a flood can still explain why Portland, Oregon, is such a “white” city.

In Russia’s Far East, an orphaned female tiger is the test case in an experimental effort to save one of the most endangered animals on earth.

Hunting people who hunt elephants.

From Norwegian waters to European plates.

The life and times of James McClintock, the man behind the famed H.L. Hunley who also may or may not have faked his own death.

Cassie Chadwick pulled her first con in 1870, at the age of 13. Over the next 30 years, she would scam her way to $633,000, about $16.5 million in today’s dollars.

More than 50 years after Nelson Rockefeller's son went missing following a boat accident in New Guinea, the true story emerges. He made it to shore, but didn't make it much farther.

Excerpted from </em>Savage Harvest</a>.</p>

Ida Wood, who lived for decades as a recluse in a New York City hotel, would have taken her secrets to the grave—if her sister hadn’t gotten there first.

The neurologist explores the mystery of hallucinations.

What the popular game says about our subconscious.

On paleopathologist Gino Fornaciari and his investigations into murders from centuries past.

On Japan’s Hokkaido, an island the size of Ireland, and its rebel leader of lore, Shakushain.

A trip to a pepper-eating contest in remote India.

Searching for a mysterious whirpool on an obscure map.

The story of a whale attack.

Learning of a plot against the life of the newly elected Lincoln, Alan Pinkerton decamps to Baltimore and infiltrates the conspiracy.

An internet pioneer loses hope in the promise of web culture.