Roy Wenzl
Articles From This Author
How the Original 'Star Trek' Addressed the War in Vietnam
When the TV show “Star Trek” first aired in the late 1960s, the program was nowhere near the blockbuster money machine of syndication and sequels it later became. Ratings were low. Only the sci-fi geeks cared. But in the 1970s, fans watching reruns helped helped breathe new life ...read more
How Diseases Spread: Ways People Have Tried to Explain Pandemics Through History
Throughout millennia, people have fostered some pretty irrational ideas about how infectious diseases such as plague and cholera were spread. Some of those notions—like the idea that the ancient Cyprian plague could be caught simply by staring into the face of someone ...read more
In 1952, the Flatwoods Monster Terrified 6 Kids, a Mom, a Dog—and the Nation
The Flatwoods Monster has not hissed at boys in the little village of Flatwoods, West Virginia, since Sept. 12, 1952. People grin about it now—and take Monster souvenir money, from hundreds of Monster tourists every week. But it scared people plenty back then, including the ...read more
How D-Day Changed the Course of WWII
The D-Day military invasion that helped to end World War II was one the most ambitious and consequential military campaigns in human history. In its strategy and scope—and its enormous stakes for the future of the free world—historians regard it among the greatest military ...read more
Oklahoma City Bombing: What Happened After the Smoke and Dust Cleared
When two home-grown terrorists detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, killing 168 people, it was, at the time, the biggest terror attack in U.S. history. The event set off the nation’s most massive F.B.I. ...read more