Polly Bartlett is said to have killed 22 people, Wyoming’s first serial killer. That is, if she ever existed. Source: soliozuz / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

The Legend of Polly Bartlett, the Murderess of Slaughterhouse Gulch

The Wild West was a lawless land. As the US settlers pushed west from the original territories of the United States towards the Pacific coast they encountered many dangers. The countryside was a dangerous place, the terrain often broken especially in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Outside of the safety of the towns there

The skeleton recovered from the well in 2016 has been confirmed as the man mentioned in Sverris Saga. Source: iScience; doi:10.1016/j.isci.2024.111076.

800-Year-Old Skeleton Confirms an Ancient Norse Saga

Much of the history of the Norse is captured in their sagas, epic poems and stories which detail these hardy people, their gods and kings, their history and their beliefs. Much would be lost were it not for these tales of battle and conquest. But these are not all historical documents, far from it. These

Bezoar stones in the Munich Residenz (Schtone / CC BY-SA 3.0)

Bezoar Stones, the Universal Antidote: More Than a Mistake?

It is fair to say that the history of medicine has been something of a hit and miss affair. Without modern technology to aid in our understanding of the root causes of ailments, there was a lot of guesswork and outright quackery in the mix for much of the time. This is not to say