In 1749, Emilie du Châtelet feared bearing a child at 42 would be the last thing she did. In her final year, she worked furiously on a magnum opus that would change the world.

Williamina Fleming was just supposed to help the director of the Harvard Observatory with household tasks. Instead, she changed the course of astronomy.

Did Maryon Cooper Hewitt want to suppress “bad genes” or steal her child’s inheritance? Their battle over genetics and motherhood riveted the nation in 1936.

In the sport’s post-Depression heyday, one audacious grifter beat the odds with an elaborate scam: disguising fast horses to look like slow ones.

Beyond the beautiful beaches and glitzy galas, Oak Bluffs is a complex community that elite families, working-class locals and social-climbing summerers all claim as their own.

William Banting tried every 19th century weight-loss fad, from caustic laxatives to vapor shampoos. Polite society was shocked when he unveiled the method that finally worked.

Dickey Chapelle jumped out of planes, marched through the jungle and survived enemy prison—redefining what it meant to be a woman on the front lines.

Fifty years ago, a left-wing radical planted bombs across New York, launching a desperate manhunt—and an explosive new strain of political extremism.

Rev. Routté bluffed his way into first-class treatment in the Jim Crow-era south — unmasking the ridiculous hypocrisy of segregation.