Contrary to the old adage, crime really d...  ...d when police found two gold bars, still warm , under his sofa. (Photo: BBC)2. Pablo Escobar (19...  ...- 1993)Picture every stereotypical South American drug dealer you've ever seen in a movie....  ...ally the pressure from authorities, includin...

The following is reprinted from The Best...  ...ute.Origin: Although occasionally used before the Civil War , its widespread popularity can probably be traced...  ...g: Make peace with an enemy. Origin: Some Native American tribes declare peace by literally burying a tomah......

It happens with almost every President – people...  ...st Virginia, owning a whiskey distillery when the Civil War broke out. The Berkeley Border Guards ended up s...  ...e from Oklahoma City University, his doctorate in American studies and master's in sociology from Wester...

Every year, the Edge Foundation, an organization f...  ...nd the world on the television program Scientific American Frontiers. And that change was reflected in how I...  .... I decided that no online community could remain civil after it grew too large, and gave up on that aspe...  ...t the importance of the at...

After 35 years and $500 billion, according to Ben...  ...wrong? Here's an article on how America lost the war on drugs:But after Escobar was killed in 1993 - a...  ...would work and what wouldn't. The tragedy of the War on Drugs is that this knowledge hasn't been heede...  ...ly a presence in 1993, is now used b...

Champagne bottles aging in the Pommery's bas...  ...- evokes a much more complex bouquet. Filled with wars , political clashes, and controversy, the bubbly r...  ...wines the shaft. They soon engaged Champagne in a war of words carried out via inflammatory pamphlets a...  ...the two regions seemed to teeter on t...

Main plaza of Mayan ruins in Tikal, Guatemal...  ...erica. Between 200 B.C.E. and 900 C.E., the Mayan civilization was anything but dark. Kings and queens rules ove...  ...lie hidden under dense rainforest. To the average American , how this happened is a mystery. We say the Maya...  ...dn’t take a superna...

(Image credit: Lazy Lightning [Flickr])Call...  ...lottery can also be traced back to China, where a warlord named Cheung Leung came up with a numbers game to...  ...e politicians' aversion to direct taxation, early American leaders often turned to lotteries to raise a buck...  .... Ben Franklin used them during...

The following is reprinted from Uncle John's...  ...ndell Holmes called taxes “the price we pay for civilization .” But few things provoke more outrage in people...  ...e purpose of the tax? To help pay for the Spanish- American war …in 1898. Phone service was so rare at...

1. The SPAM® MuseumOutside the Spam Museum. (I...  ...merica's favorite tinned meat. But vacationers be warned : In addition to major holidays, the museum will b...  ...92.Visitors are treated to exhibit that include a Civil War embalming display and a replica of a turn-of-...