Thuggees, from the Sanskrit word meaning “concealment”, were an organized gang of professional assassins – sometimes described as the world's first mafia – who operated from the 13th to the 19th...
Near the city of Gaza, 3,000 years ago, laid a city unlike any other in the world. The Greeks called it Rhinocolura, named for strange faces of the people who lived there – because every person there...
A famous dolmen on the Channel Islands has been damaged. Vandals drilled into one of the supporting stones of the 6,000-year-old Stone Age monument. It is believed that they were looking for quartz...
In the modern day and age, crime is no less present than it was several hundred years ago. Sure, the world did become a lot more civilized, but criminals still exist. But the truth is, that while...
Throughout our relatively modern history, con artists, thieves, and scammers have been a dime a dozen. In dire times of poverty and lawlessness, shrewd and mischievous people resorted to the world of...
Historic England have announced the remains of Withybrook medieval village in Warwickshire have been irreparably damaged by a family, who wanted to graze horses. John Mac, 58, his wife Elizabeth and...
Royal Street of New Orleans’ French Quarter is one of the oldest parts of the city, well-known and liked for the many antique shops, galleries, and sights. It remains a window into the real soul of...
It is no surprise that the medieval period was filled with all kinds of undesirable jobs. There were leech collectors, cesspool cleaners, serfs, and gong farmers, to name a few. But one vocation that...
A sacred symbol of Scottish identity, a late medieval bell, has been stolen from a remote ruined chapel on an uninhabited Scottish isle which featured as the ‘Black Lake’ in the Harry Potter films...
For as long as societies have had to deal with crime, they’ve had to deal out punishment. In some, places, and situations the process was only meant to humiliate the guilty, but most of the following...
Wicklow Gaol is a historic prison located in the town of Wicklow in Ireland, which gained notoriety for the brutality of the prison wardens, and the harsh treatment suffered by its inmates, many of...
The story of Moses doesn’t just show up in the Bible. In the ancient world, nearly every culture had their own version of what happened. The Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans all had their own...
The ancient Etruscans are often remembered as a highly-cultured civilization which was peaceful and spiritual. However, the shocking discovery of a burial unearthed recently in Populonia, central...
The history of criminal justice and forensic science is really interesting because of all the absurd rituals and superstitions courts relied on to determine guilt or innocence right up until the 19th...
The Bladen Journal reports that a mummified hand found in Castleton, North Yorkshire, England is the only known ‘Hand of Glory’, a grotesque artifact meant to aid thieves in their work during the...