The Estonia was carrying 989 passengers when it sank in 30-foot seas on its way across the Baltic in September 1994. More than 850 lost their lives. The ones who survived acted quickly and remained calm.

In 1978, an eighth grader killed his teacher. After 20 months in a psychiatric facility, he was freed. His classmates still wonder: What really happened?

In the fall of 1966, billionaire Doris Duke killed a close confidant in Newport, Rhode Island. Local police ruled the incident “an unfortunate accident.” Half a century later, evidence suggests she got away with murder.

In the ’90s, a frustrated artist in Berlin went on a crime spree—building bombs, extorting high-end stores, and styling his persona after Scrooge McDuck. He soon became a German folk hero.

In Taipei, young people like Nancy Tao Chen Ying watched as the Hong Kong protests were brutally extinguished. Now they wonder what’s in their future.

As surely as 2008 was made possible by black people’s long fight to be publicly American, it was also made possible by those same Americans’ long fight to be publicly black. That latter fight belongs especially to one man, as does the sight of a first family bearing an African name. Barack Obama is the president. But it’s Malcolm X’s America.

A youth set to the shifting sounds of CCM, Christian Contemporary Music:

This, by the way, is considered the ultimate sign of quality CCM, even amongst Christians: the ability to pass as secular. Every band’s goal was to have teenagers stop their grooving mid-song and exclaim, like a soda commercial actress who’s just realized she’s been drinking Diet, “Wait, this is Christian?”

“As we enter into a new age, maybe art will be free. Maybe the students are right. They should be able to download music and movies. I’m going to be shot for saying this. But who said art has to cost money?”

A son tries to make sense of his mother’s end.

The history of blue jeans, “America’s greatest contribution to the global closet.”

A mother struggles to cope when a child is born with albinism.

How self-harm came to take more lives than war, murder and natural disasters combined.

The cheerleader who sued the Raiders for failure to pay minimum wage.

Following a lobster from sea to table.

One rabbi’s tactics against husbands who refuse to divorce their wives.

On the universal drive to grow and reproduce.

A trip to the U.S. Open of ping-pong.

Fame, fashion, and a trip to the zoo.

An essay about phone dials and a response to the end of blogging.

On Teller, his magic, and his response to a stolen trick.

A trip to Hempfest with cannabis breeder DJ Short.

A move to Los Angeles and a foray into the bourgeoisie.

After being extinct for 70 million years, the coelacanth came back to life.

On recommitting to the Knicks after “a decade of dysfunction and delusion.”