Aimo Koivunen skied 250 miles while tripping balls on amphetamines — Imagine being a Finnish soldier, moving through the harsh Lapland wilderness on a frosty winter’s day. It’s about 10 in the morning, your unit has been on the move almost non-stop for more than two days, skiing in knee-deep snow, and everyone’s completely exhausted. …

Fast, sleek and opulent, the legendary liner inspired the name of a beer — “Hurray for the Rex! The greatest thing the regime ever built!” In Fellini’s Oscar-winning 1973 movie Amarcord, the SS Rex comes out of the darkness, glistening with lights like a giant Christmas tree. …

An act of spite turned two invaluable historical artifacts to ashes “I guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle,” Donna Tartt wrote in her 2014 Pulitzer winning novel The Goldfinch. …

Racing to riches in the showbiz of Ancient Rome — When it comes to ultra-rich athletes, names like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Cristiano Ronaldo come to mind. But their million-dollar deals pale in comparison to the staggering fortune accumulated by Gaius Appuleius Diocles, a chariot racer from the 2nd century AD. When he retired at the ripe age of…

Sex, scandal, and the fiery-haired woman who rewrote Roman history — It was 62 AD and for the first, and perhaps the only time in his life, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus — Nero for short — was happy. He had just married his second wife, Poppaea Sabina, and theirs seemed like a great love match. For some time he even abandoned his…

A tale of crime, espionage, and poisoned husbands — Born in France in May 1893, little Jeanne Amélie Marguerite Clérisse — Marga for her friends — was not a very nice girl. Rude and turbulent, with a wild streak and a penchant for breaking rules, she didn’t really fit in with her provincial, respectable Catholic family. Or with anybody…

“Miss Astronaut Barbie” was space trekking before Neil and Buzz — The most famous plastic blonde of all time, Barbie has been a pop culture icon for over six decades. It has been idolized, mocked, emulated, rebranded as a feminist icon, criticized as unrealistic and stereotyped, and everything in between. In the meantime, Mattel has sold over a billion Barbie dolls…

A woman, her bottle of whiskey, and her .32-caliber revolver — If you were to walk past Mary Shanley on the bustling streets of New York, chances are you wouldn’t have given her a second glance. As she pushed her way into the crowd in her modest polka-dot dress, veiled hat, and sensible shoes, she could pass for any ordinary housewife…

Cléo was Instafamous 100 years before Instagram — With her signature hairstyle, her glamorous life, and her elaborate stage costumes, Cléopâtre-Diane de Mérode — known by her stage name Cléo — took the world by storm when she was only eleven. Born in Paris, France, on September 27, 1875, she was the illegitimate daughter of a Viennese baroness…