Colin Scanlon

Joined: Jan 6, 2025

Colin is a Pittsburgh-based writer whose work explores culture, media, and the strange side of history. His writing has appeared in publications such as Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, and Cosmopolitan, among others. He can usually be found reading, researching, or wandering around Pittsburgh's parks with a coffee in tow.

Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan during a practice session for the 1994 Winter Olympics

While you might not know their names, you certainly know their influence. Read our list of female revolutionaries, including Charlotte Corday, Kathleen Neal Cleaver, and more.

If you’ve ever wondered how far someone can get on confidence alone, these impersonators offer some unsettling answers.

From coded confessions to bone-chilling firsthand accounts of battle, these diarists used private confession to illuminate history for generations to come.

From falsified memoirs to forged manuscripts, these literary hoaxes prove once again that reality can often be stranger than fiction.

What a director chooses to cut can often be just as impactful as what they choose to keep.

Edvard Munch's ‘The Scream’ on display for auction

Sometimes art inspires awe—other times it inspires brazen break-ins. Here are seven of the biggest art heists in history.

Kids these days would be horrified by past parenting standards.

From opium-laced syrups to “just ignore the baby,” history is packed with child-rearing advice and habits best left in the past.

Politics and power sometimes take a backseat to family drama.

Though it’s not often that the paranormal and legal intersect, the line between hauntings and hearings has occasionally been blurred. These five cases used “spectral evidence” to render verdicts.