Failure has an odd way of revealing what success can hide. Some of history's most consequential mistakes, disasters, and rejected ideas forced inventors, engineers, companies, and governments to confront problems they might otherwise have ignored for decades.
These forgotten 1970s bestsellers once dominated bookstores, bestseller lists, movies, and television. Decades later, many books that shaped popular culture have nearly disappeared from public memory.
Paul Gauguin is famous for his paintings of a Tahitian paradise—but most people don't know about his disturbing dark side.
Most of us know Andy Williams as the cardigan-wearing, clean-cut crooner of the mid-century, but there is so much more to him than we realized.
In 1944, Clare Boothe Luce was on a train with her beloved daughter when the girl made a chilling premonition—and just days later, it came true.
Most people fade into obscurity after they die, but a precious few achieve something stranger: their names become a part of our language.
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