The Eugenics Record Office thought pseudoscience could make more perfect humans. It led to unspeakable tragedy.

Americans have a strong preference for what they want to eat before they shuffle off this mortal coil.

But of all the English language’s possible sources of difficulty, easily confused and muddled word pairs—from there and their to e.g. and i.e. —surely rank among the most troublesome. Now, a new ...

Boston’s Fenway Park is full of criminals. In the state of Massachusetts, it’s technically illegal to swear at or otherwise insult athletes or officials during sporting events. That would make ...

Because basements are partially below grade, or under the ground, an egress window is often installed near a window well, which provides space to maneuver once a person has exited through the window.

But it’s a lot harder to remember the village or town where each president was actually born. Let’s see how far you can get in this surprisingly difficult quiz. What about the other states that can ...

That line of thinking seemed to hold until the summer of 1961, when a highly-regarded public figure began to implore American families to pursue fallout shelters. The advocacy didn’t come from any ...

Among linguists today, the story of Humboldt’s talking parrot is often considered the perfect embodiment of the fragility of language: if a language has not been recorded in some way, as soon as ...

A science fiction writer called it an “artifact of such utter simplicity and perfection that it seems it must be either the ...

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and wounded as a result of the bombings, but true counts are difficult to ...

With 1985 now 40 years gone, Mental Floss is taking a look at the people who were making headlines and emerging as cultural ...

Over a decade later, Yokoi’s seed of an idea would grow into Nintendo’s Game Boy, a deceptively simplistic device that proved ...