A figure from 16th-century Spanish literature, Calafia ruled over the all-women island of California — a story that inspired Spanish conquistadors when they explored the western coast of North America.

Kate Phillips' lover Henry Morley perished in the sinking of the Titanic, but not before he gave her a sapphire necklace as a token of their love.

In November 1864, a group of eight Confederates set fires throughout Manhattan, hoping to destroy the city — but their plot ultimately went up in smoke.

After Emperor Nero allegedly kicked his wife Poppaea Sabina to death in 65 C.E., he met a slave boy named Sporus who looked like her — so Nero had him castrated and took him as his bride.

According to Celtic and Norse mythology, selkies are seals who can become human by shedding their "sealskin" on land.

After escaping slavery in Jamaica in the 18th century, Nanny of the Maroons helped other enslaved Africans escape — and led a guerrilla war against British colonizers.

While statues of Hecate were often used in ancient Greece to ward off evil spirits, the goddess also had connections to death, darkness, and hellhounds.

As the Red Army closed in on the German capital in April 1945, the Berlin Philharmonic played one last time to a packed audience who reportedly received cyanide capsules on their way out the door.

Merle Oberon's mother was from Sri Lanka, but the Golden Age actress pretended to be fully white to avoid Hays Code restrictions and racial prejudice to land leading roles.

"Feral Child" Genie Wiley was strapped to a chair by her parents and neglected for 13 years before she was finally rescued — then she was experimented upon by researchers studying human development.

Before Lorraine Warren's death in 2019, she and her husband Ed spent decades investigating alleged hauntings, from the Amityville Horror house to the eerie case that inspired The Conjuring.

Following decades of depression and addiction, movie legend Judy Garland died of a barbiturate overdose in London at age 47 on June 22, 1969.