what you didn't know

<p></p><p>This is the story of a woman whose face was known by millions as the "most beautiful in the world," but whose mind was so far ahead of its time that her most brilliant invention was dismissed as a...

<p></p><p>This is the story of a man who spent forty years learning how to fly, only to be defined by the 208 seconds where he didn't.</p><p>On a freezing January afternoon in 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 took off from...

<p></p><p>This is the story of a man who held the keys to both life and death—a scientist who is responsible for the existence of half the people on Earth today, and the horrific end of millions of others.</p><p>In...

<p></p><p>This is the story of a boy from a rainy logging town who hated the spotlight, yet ended up becoming the sun that an entire generation revolved around.</p><p>In the early 1990s, the music world was dominated by...

<p>The Man with the Golden Arm</p><p>In 1951, a fourteen-year-old boy in Australia underwent a major chest surgery that required thirteen units of blood to save his life. As he recovered, he made a vow: as soon as he...

<p>The Limping Lady of Lyon</p><p>She wanted to be a diplomat, but a tragic hunting accident cost her a leg and, according to the State Department at the time, her career. They told her a woman with a disability had no...

<p>The Man Who Boxed the World</p><p>In 1937, a young truck driver sat at a pier in New Jersey, fuming. He had been sitting there all day, watching men manually haul heavy crates and cotton bales from his truck into the...

<p>The Scholar in the Shadow</p><p>In the late 1800s, the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary faced an impossible task: cataloging every word in the English language and finding its first recorded use. They sent...

<p>The Secret of the Steel Needle</p><p>In the late 1920s, two men were standing on opposite ends of Manhattan, staring at each other through telescopes. They weren't looking at stars; they were looking at the skeletons...

<p>The Thief Who Caught Himself</p><p>He was a brawler, a deserter, and a master of disguise who escaped from the most "escape-proof" prisons in Europe. By his early thirties, he was one of the most wanted men in...

<p></p><p>This is the story of the most important five minutes in human history—and the man who decided to do absolutely nothing.</p><p>At midnight on September 26, 1983, the world as we know it nearly ended. Inside a...

<p></p><p>This is the story of a man who was only four feet tall, lived with a hump on his back, and was nearly deported from America for being "unfit." Yet, he became the only man in the world who could talk to...

<p></p><p>A nineteen-year-old boy stands in a dim room in occupied Paris. His hands are stained with chemicals, and his eyes are heavy with sleep. He isn't holding a rifle or a grenade. He is holding a fountain pen and...

<p></p><p>For eleven years, a woman in a horse-drawn carriage was a constant sight on the construction site of what was then the largest suspension bridge in the world. The workers called her the messenger. The...

<p>He was a world-class long-distance runner—a man who could have competed for Olympic gold. But in 1939, he wasn’t running for a medal. He was running a race against a clock that was ticking in Berlin.</p><p>In this...