Under the code of omertà, anyone who spoke to the police was marked for torture and death — and so were their families.

Go inside the complicated history of when the Bible was written and the ongoing debates about the authorship of the Christian holy book.

The infamous conqueror is believed to have impregnated hundreds of women in his lifetime — and researchers believe as many as 16 million people may be descended from Genghis Khan today.

Built between 1050 and 1300, El Castillo is a magnificent stone pyramid located at the center of the Maya city of Chichén Itzá that stands 79 feet tall and is 181 feet wide at its base.

Before the existence of the Secret Service and the FBI, the Pinkerton Detective Agency was America’s premier security and intelligence organization — until its reputation for violence and strikebreaking caused it to lose favor with the public.

The British warship HMS Wager was supposed to "annoy and distress the Spaniards" in the South Seas. Instead, the crew became stranded on an uninhabited island — and descended into chaos.

Mictlantecuhtli was a menacing Aztec deity who oversaw the underworld, Mictlan, rewarding the dead who completed the four-year journey to its deepest level with eternal rest.

Favored by the Aztecs, chinampas are man-made islands used to grow crops in freshwater lakes — and the agricultural system is still used in Mexico today.

In Greek mythology, the Gordian knot was an unsolvable puzzle that was tied by King Midas and later sliced in half by Alexander the Great, foretelling his imminent takeover of western Asia.

Cabrini-Green was an example of what a public housing project could be, but became so neglected that it was used as the setting for the horror movie Candyman.

Also called Yuletide, the Pagan celebration of the winter solstice known as Yule was observed by ancient Germanic peoples for hundreds of years.