Clocking in at 882 feet long, the Titanic's size was unparalleled — but it might have also hastened its demise.Wikimedia CommonsMost know the story of its tragedy, but few know how big the Titanic was. When it set sail in 1912, it was the largest vessel ever built. When it launched in April 1912, the Titanic was deemed the largest ship in the world. The literal behemoth measured 882 feet long and 92 feet wide, with a weight of over 46,000 tons.

Santa Claus is based on a real man named St. Nicholas who lived in the third century, but the generous monk also spawned countless other legends of Santa-like figures.Most children in the United States grow up with a very clear idea of who Santa Claus is and what he looks like. Legends of Santa around the world describe him as jolly, rosy-cheeked, and endowed with powers that allow him to visit every house in one night to deliver Christmas presents.

Christopher Scarver didn't like Jeffrey Dahmer's crimes. So on November 28, 1994, in Columbia Correctional Institution, he did something about it.On November 28, 1994, Christopher Scarver, an inmate at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, was assigned to clean the prison’s gymnasium with two other inmates. One inmate was named Jesse Anderson. The other was the infamous cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer. It was then that Christopher Scarver killed Dahmer by beating him to death, leaving him battered and bloody on the floor.

Before the existence of the Secret Service and the FBI, the Pinkerton Detective Agency was America’s premier security and intelligence organization — until its reputation for violence and strikebreaking caused it to lose favor with the public.Wikimedia CommonsAllan Pinkerton (left) with Abraham Lincoln and General John A. McClernand at Antietam, 1862. When Allan Pinkerton first set foot on American soil in 1842, he was a humble cooper who’d survived poverty and political turmoil in his native Scotland.

In the early 1900s, Alice Guy-Blaché directed one of the first narrative films and founded her own studio before the glory days of Hollywood. But then, she nearly disappeared from history.Public DomainAlice Guy Blache, pictured in 1913. In 1895 Paris, 21-year-old Alice Guy sat beside her boss, Leon Gaumont, at an small, exclusive gathering. Auguste and Louis Lumiére were demonstrating their new invention: the Cinématographe, one of the first film projectors.