From the front lines of blood-soaked battles to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, these photos illustrate the realities of life for millions of troops and civilians during World War II.

After the April 1986 nuclear disaster, a 30-kilometer zone around Chernobyl was completely abandoned. This is what it looks like today.

During the Holocaust, 130,000 female prisoners passed through the gates of Ravensbrück — most of whom never walked out.

When comedian Phil Hartman was killed by his wife Brynn on May 28, 1998, America was devastated — but his friends had seen the warning signs for years.

Even after 2,200 years, the mummy of ancient Chinese noblewoman Xin Zhui a.k.a. Lady Dai remains so well-preserved that there's hair on her head and blood in her veins.

These Dust Bowl photos depicting enormous dust storms, destroyed farmland, and desperate migrants paint an evocative picture of one of the worst cataclysms in U.S. history.

These colorized Old West pictures show the frontier as it truly was, a land of sheriffs, outlaws, Native Americans, boomtowns, and wide-open prairies.

The original versions of childhood films like Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid replace cute animal sidekicks and happily ever afters with bloodshed and betrayal.

The English nursery rhyme "London Bridge is Falling Down" seems innocent on the surface, but some scholars believe it's a reference to immurement — the medieval punishment where a person is locked inside a room until they died.

In 1986, Pennsylvania state treasurer Robert Budd Dwyer was convicted of bribery charges — then he shot himself in front of television cameras a few months later.

With theories ranging from an avalanche to katabatic wind, researchers may have finally solved the Dyatlov Pass Incident that left nine Soviet hikers dead in February 1959.

Lepa Radić was hanged in February 1943 for resisting the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, and some of her final words from the gallows were, "Do not surrender to the evildoers!"