Too strange to forget.
Too true to be folklore.
History took a strange turn.
Remarkable true stories, hidden in the public record.
A little disbelief is a good place to begin.
Stranger than fiction.
Grounded in the record.
Follow your curiosity
Extraordinary events.
The records to back them up.
14 stories to get lost in
National Museum of American History. Public domain.
1822–1823 · Strange schemes
Gregor MacGregor sold land, banknotes, and government posts in a country that did not exist. Then the settlers arrived.
5 min read
Campo de' Fiori, Rome; engraving by Giuseppe Vasi, 1752. Public domain.
1633–1659 · Strange schemes
The story promises one poisoner and six hundred dead husbands. The Roman archive holds a real prosecution, disputed identities, and a very different chronology.
5 min read
Double Eagle II gondola (the later successful crossing); photograph by Mike Peel, CC BY-SA 4.0.
July 1978 · Into the unknown
In July 1978, Zanussi carried two men almost across the Atlantic. A leak, a storm, and about 110 miles of remaining ocean kept them from the record.
4 min read
Scientific American, 5 March 1870. Public domain.
1869–1873 · Strange schemes
In 1870, Alfred Ely Beach sent passengers beneath Broadway in a car moved by air. The demonstration worked. The larger subway he imagined never followed.
4 min read
E. Lauro, Cairo, 1898. Public domain.
1898–1899 · Close calls
A French column reached a ruined fort on the White Nile. An Anglo-Egyptian flotilla followed. In 1898, two imperial claims met at Fashoda.
7 min read
Photograph, 1872. Public domain.
1859–1872 · Close calls
A pig wandered into an American settler’s garden in 1859. His shot brought troops to San Juan Island, where the border remained unsettled until 1872.
6 min read
1837–1842 · Close calls
A British raid burned an American steamer on the Niagara in 1837. One man died. Years later, a murder trial threatened the peace again.
12 min read
Valentine Series postcard, 1904. Public domain.
1904–1905 · Close calls
A Russian squadron mistook Hull trawlers for a threat in 1904. Two fishermen died. Britain and Russia then had to prevent a second disaster.
10 min read
1861–1862 · Close calls
A Union captain seized four men from a British mail ship in 1861. Britain demanded their return. The Civil War nearly acquired another front.
10 min read
G. Philip, London, 1897; Bibliotheque nationale de France. Public domain.
1895–1899 · Close calls
In 1895, an argument over British Guiana’s boundary brought a threat from Washington. A treaty eased the crisis. Its map did not settle the dispute.
10 min read
September 1950 · Into the unknown
In 1950, the military released bacteria off San Francisco without warning residents. A later hospital outbreak raised a question the surviving evidence could not settle.
4 min read
NASA satellite view of Bering Island, 1992. Public domain.
1741–1742 · Into the unknown
His expedition reached the American coast. The voyage home ended in a wreck, a winter camp, and a boat the survivors had to build themselves.
5 min read
1698–1700 · Strange schemes
Five ships sailed to build a Scottish trading colony in 1698. When the next expedition arrived, the settlement had already been abandoned.
5 min read
1839–1842 · Close calls
Maine sent an armed posse into disputed forest in 1839. Arrests and military preparations followed. The Aroostook War ended at a negotiating table.
18 min read
From the archive / Bank of Poyais, c. 1820sGo one layer deeper
Meet Poyais: the country Gregor MacGregor sold to investors and settlers. Open the story, then follow the evidence into our annotated working file.
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