Even though she was emancipated in 1848, Henrietta Wood was kidnapped and enslaved again for 16 more years. After she was freed a second time, she took her captor to court.

Throughout industrial Britain and America, young women employed at matchmaking factories and working closely with toxic chemicals developed a brutal disease known as “phossy jaw" — which caused their jawbones to literally rot.

In Renaissance-era Venice, Veronica Franco reached unusual heights for a woman as an educated courtesan. But as luxurious as the position was, it could be easily destroyed.

In the early 1980s, a rock of crack cocaine went for as little as $5. Due to its cheap price and high purity, it spread like wildfire across the country.

To this day, Victorian death pictures remain chilling artifacts of a bygone era that's shocking to modern sensibilities.

From wife selling to mummy unwrapping, these Victorian era facts will make you so glad you live in the 21st century.

After Sarah Hale became the first female magazine editor in America, she used her unique platform to help create Thanksgiving as we know it.

After the whaleship "Essex" was sunk by a vengeful sperm whale, its crew was left on the high seas for 90 days — causing them to resort to cannibalism.

Martin Luther King Jr. once called Chicago the most racist city in America. Here's the long history that proves him right.

While many Americans are taught that the civil rights movement was localized in the South in the 1950s and '60s, the reality is that the struggle was brutal all over the country.

King Henry VIII lusted after Anne Boleyn for nine years before divorcing his first wife to marry her — then had her executed three years later.