The rise and fall of the “most far-flung, most organized, and most brazen example of homosexual extortion in the nation’s history.”

The story of William Morgan: American, wanderer, Cuban revolutionary.

In 1810, a freed slave named Tom Molineaux fought one of the most important bouts in boxing history.

The legacy of a secret Cold War program that tested chemical weapons on thousands of American soldiers.

The evolution of currency as “a complete abstraction.”

For more than a decade,it was Michelle Lyons’s job to observe the final moments of death row inmates—but watching 278 executions did not come without a cost.

“It was there that Nancy and Louis fell in love not only with each other, but also with Afghanistan itself. The country was as exceptional and difficult as they were—and when it descended into chaos, they had no choice but to follow it.”

The examination to become a London cabby is possibly the most difficult test in the world — demanding years of study to memorize the labyrinthine city’s 25,000 streets and any business or landmark on them. As GPS and Uber imperil this tradition, is there an argument for learning as an end in itself?

The father of the Sandy Hook killer searches for answers.

On the trail of the phantom women who changed American music and then vanished without a trace.

A sumo wrestling tournament. A failed coup ending in seppuku. A search for a forgotten man. How one writer’s trip to Japan became a journey through oblivion.

For nearly thirty years, a phantom haunted the woods of Central Maine. Unseen and unknown, he lived in secret, creeping into homes in the dead of night and surviving on what he could steal. To the spooked locals, he became a legend—or maybe a myth. They wondered how he could possibly be real. Until one day last year, the hermit came out of the forest

Last fall, one of Spain’s greatest matadors took a horn to the face. It was a brutal goring, among the most horrific in the history of bullfighting. Miraculously, Juan Jose Padilla was back in the bullring—sí, fighting bulls—a mere five months later. And in the process of losing half his sight, he somehow managed to double his vision.

On his first tour of duty in Afghanistan, Sam Brown was set on fire by an improvised explosive device. He survived, only to find himself, like thousands of other vets, doomed to a post-traumatic life of unbearable pain. Even hallucinogen-grade drugs offered little relief, and little hope.

Then his doctors told him about an experimental treatment, a painkilling video game supposedly more effective than morphine. If successful, it would deliver Brown from his living hell into a strange new world—a digital winter wonderland.

My brief, backbreaking, rage-inducing, low-paying, dildo-packing time inside the online-shipping machine.

A troubled Iraq veteran seeks out the family he harmed.

On August 13, 1986, Michael Morton came home from work to discover that his wife had been brutally murdered in their bed. His nightmare had only begun.

During the 25 years that Michael Morton spent wrongfull imprisoned for murdering his wife, he kept three things in mind: Someday he would prove his innocence to their son. Someday he would find out who killed her. And someday he would understand how this had happened to him.

Kim Dotcom is not a pirate. Kim Dotcom is a pirate.

[Requires Subscription] The gripping true story of three close friends—Tom, Ian, and Jimmy—whose courage is challenged every day as they walk the Afghan countryside with their fellow Marines, patrolling for cleverly hidden explosives that can instantly tear a man in half.

How a serial killer and his teenage accomplice used listings for “the job of a lifetime” to lure their victims, all single men, to the backwoods of Ohio.

Inside the underground economy of stolen bikes.

A New Yorker finds an unlikely house guest on Craigslist.

An early investigation of “Craigslist Killer” Philip Markoff.

How Craigslist dealers do business.