55 Images That Capture The Dramatic Collapse Of The Soviet Union, A 500-Year-Old Mystery Of The Mona Lisa Is Potentially Solved, And More

[History Uncovered]( [Inside The Collapse Of The Soviet Union In 1991 And The Explosive Chain Of Events That Led To It]( ["The Soviet Union as a subject of international and geopolitical reality no longer exists."]( [How 'Freeway' Rick Ross Built A $900 Million Crack Empire In The 1980s — Then Freed Himself From A Life Sentence]( [Though "Freeway" Rick Ross was illiterate for much of his early life, he taught himself to read at age 28 while he was serving a life sentence — and discovered a legal technicality in his case that would allow for reduced time in prison. Because of this, he ended up serving just 14 years.]( [Art Historian Claims To Solve A Enduring 'Mona Lisa' Mystery By Identifying The Bridge In The Painting's Background]( [Da Vinci is believed to have started painting the Mona Lisa around 1503, when the bridge was busy and functional, and he was even living near the bridge at the time.]( [The Rise And Fall Of The Paris Commune, The Popular-Led Government That Briefly Transformed The French Capital]( [It only lasted two months, but it still helped shape modern France.]( [How The Kennedy Death Curse Has Haunted The Famous Family For Decades]( [From the mysterious midair explosion that killed Joseph Kennedy Jr. in 1944 to the vanishing of Maeve Kennedy in the Chesapeake Bay in 2020, the Kennedys have been plagued by untimely deaths for 80 years.]( [The Surprising History Of The Iron Maiden, From The Middle Ages To Saddam Hussein]( ["Slowly, so that the very sharp points penetrated his arms, and his legs in several places, and his belly and chest, and his bladder and the root of his member, and his eyes, and his shoulder, and his buttocks, but not enough to kill him, and so he remained making great cry and lament for two days, after which he died."]( [Archaeologists In Florida Just Discovered The Remains Of A Sunken Quarantine Hospital From The 19th Century]( [The discovery was made in the waters of Dry Tortugas National Park, a 100-square-mile collection of islands in the Florida Keys.]( [The Double Life Of Philip Markoff, The Medical Student Who Became The 'Craiglist Killer']( [Promising 23-year-old medical student and husband-to-be Philip Markoff solicited women off Craigslist to abuse and rob them. He wound up brutally murdering one before he was caught.]( [Someone Buried A Roman Treasure Hoard In An Italian Forest 2,000 Years Ago — And A Hiker Just Found It]( [Researchers think the treasure may have been buried by a Roman soldier during a turbulent moment in Roman history in hopes of returning one day and retrieving it.]( [The Real-Life Dracula Was Much Worse Than The Count Ever Was]( [Known as Vlad the Impaler, Vlad III of Wallachia ruled over modern-day Romania in the 15th century — and subjected his enemies to horrific executions.]( [The U.S. Torpedoed This Japanese Ship In WWII, Killing 1,000 POWs — And Researchers Just Found Its Wreck]( [On July 2, 1942, a U.S. submarine torpedoed the SS Montevideo Maru, not knowing it was carrying over 1,000 Allied prisoners of war — all of whom were killed.]( [55 Of The Most Powerful Photos From American History And The Incredible Stories Behind Them]( [On September 20, 1932, Charles C. Ebbets snapped the famous photo "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" — while straddling a steel beam 69 stories above the ground.]( [Unsubscribe]( [Update Subscription]( [History Uncovered On Instagram]( [History Uncovered On Facebook](