Large patterns of flattened crops and other plants, crop circles are breathtaking when viewed from above. But that doesn't mean they have extraterrestrial origins.

Between 1933 and 1934, John Dillinger and his fearsome gang terrorized the Midwest while robbing banks and organizing prison breaks — and soon he was the most wanted "public enemy" in the country.

How did wealthy heiress Patty Hearst become a violent member of a left-wing guerrilla group — that kidnapped her?

The Milgram experiment tested its subjects' willingness to harm other people for the sake of obeying authority — and it ended with truly shocking results.

Abraham Lincoln had unusually close relationships with a businessman named Joshua Green and a presidential bodyguard named David Derickson. But was he gay?

After suffering sexual abuse as a teenager and being forced out of the house, Aileen Wuornos engaged in sex work and eventually killed seven of her johns in 1989 and 1990.

Born in 1859 and shot dead at the age of just 21, Billy the Kid may have lived a short life, but it was filled with some of the most storied exploits of the Old West.

In 1818, Mary Shelley published her classic novel about Dr. Frankenstein and his disturbing experiments with reanimation — but the stories of these seven scientists from history prove that reality can sometimes be stranger than fiction.

Construction on California City started in 1958, and its developer hoped that it would one day be larger than L.A. or San Francisco — but more than 60 years later, its population has yet to break 15,000.

While reigning as the autocratic ruler of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, King Leopold II of Belgium may have killed as many as 15 million people.

The photo of "Napalm Girl'' depicting nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phúc running from a South Vietnamese airstrike shocked the world in 1972. But there's a lot more to her story.

Black Liberation activist Assata Shakur was found guilty of killing a police officer in 1977, only to escape prison two years later and become a political refugee in Cuba.