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.

On the morning of August 30, 2013, California Highway Patrol officers informed the parents of 19-year-old Bryce Laspisa that their son's car was found wrecked, driven off a 25-foot embankment near Castaic Lake — but there was no sign of Laspisa to be found.

In 1863, a slave known only as Gordon escaped from a Louisiana plantation where he was nearly whipped to death. His story was quickly published — along with a gruesome photo of his injuries.

The vengeful ghost of a murdered slave named Daniel Robitaille, Candyman may be fictitious, but one real murder did help inspire the classic film's horrors.