Articles by Sarah Durn

There's more to this 19th-century crime than the dark side of fairy lore.

Cruel joke, power move, or both?

For this community of “space cowboys,” entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts, a fireball streaming across the sky offers big risks and bigger rewards—and new tech is heating up the competition.

But they didn’t eat our ancestors—probably.

For more than a century, their stories were ignored—until now.

From musket-wielding empress Nur Jahan to writer Gulbadan Begum, meet the influential women of the early-modern Muslim empire.

Lauren Tischendorf is the first woman to complete the grueling 20-mile swim around Lord Howe Island in Australia.

They wore pants, advocated for free love, and refused to back down.

From wielding lethal bows to commanding troops, the female soldiers of the Central Asian steppe were formidable foes.

When Ruggles Mine went up for auction, mineral collectors feared it would never reopen to the public. After a last-minute reprieve, its future is still uncertain.

Thought for decades to be extinct, the tiny animal has stayed hidden in a former subterranean speakeasy.

Up to 1,200 years old, the stately 'Seven Sisters' Oak has held the title for more than half a century.

From fighting in the army to managing the kingdom, women were key players in every aspect of the Mongol Empire.

From a Nazi code machine found at the bottom of a bay to a vintage Babe Ruth card hidden in a piano.

The remnants of Borgund were buried in the dirt for centuries and then sat in museum storage for decades.

Dorothy wore the disputed blue-and-white frock when she faced down the Wicked Witch.

From the secrets of Venice’s codebreakers to China’s intricately carved puzzle balls, these historical ciphers will inspire your curiosity.

History’s best-known muses were artists in their own right.

But proving the “drunken monkey” hypothesis has been an exhausting—and messy—endeavor.

Some recordings in the New York Public Library’s wax cylinder collection haven’t been heard in generations—until now.

NASA accidentally sold it, tried to take it back, lost it in a court battle—and now you can own it.

The women of England’s SOE fought on the beaches of Normandy, sabotaged the Nazis within France, and turned the tides of the war.

From California’s mythic warrior queen to the swole women of Sparta to female hunters in ancient Peru.

The gender politics of attempting to right a historic wrong.