Christopher Klein

The conflict in Vietnam ended in turmoil with the largest helicopter evacuation of its kind in history.

Ali refused to be inducted into the US Army to fight in Vietnam.

These seven pontiffs left lasting legacies on the course of the Catholic Church—and world history.

Explore 10 things you may not know about the seat of the Catholic Church.

The world-famous playwright invented scores of new words and phrases. Here are 10 that have become part of the popular lexicon.

From gold rushes to guerrilla wars, dynamite’s dual legacy is one of construction and destruction.

The future fast-food giant started out as anything but swift, serving up slow-cooked barbecue. How did it become the behemoth it is today?

Historical accounts of the man who sentenced Jesus to death paint him as arrogant and cruel; the Bible goes easier on him, shifting the blame.

Violence and vandalism were once as traditional as candy and costumes.

Some argue that Jesus wasn't an actual man, but within a few decades of his lifetime, he was mentioned by Jewish and Roman historians.

A group of hard-boiled congressmen literally protecting their turf got the annual Easter tradition rolling.

Get the story behind Dwight Eisenhower’s grueling, 62-day cross-country road trip that inspired the creation of the Interstate Highway System.

Approximately 700 miles of barbed wire, chain link, post-and-rail and wire mesh fencing has been erected along the border.

Some winged warriors, like the famed Cher Ami, received military honors for their intrepid feats as battlefield messengers.

The men of Town Line voted to leave the United States at the start of the Civil War—but it wasn’t over slavery.

In the 1990s, eight adventurers spent two years separated from the rest of the world inside a futuristic greenhouse meant to mimic a spaceship—on Earth.

After terrorizing trans-Atlantic ships in World War I, German U-boats grew even more fearsome in World War II.

Baseball's biggest icon once served jail time and spent most of his life believing he was a year older than he really was.

Ten surprising facts about the national anthem and the man who wrote its lyrics.

Severe exposure, starvation and disease ravaged tribes during their forced migration to present-day Oklahoma.

Sergeant Reckless was the only animal ever awarded an official rank in the Marine Corps.

The annual Thanksgiving ritual of granting presidential pardons to White House turkeys is not as hallowed as you may think.

Not until nearly three years after the bombing of Pearl Harbor did Japan adopt suicide aerial attacks as official military strategy.

More than a quarter of the nation was inoculated in 1976 for a pandemic that never materialized.

A volcanic eruption and shift in climate could have triggered a series of ancient calamities—from pestilence to locusts—as described in the Bible.

The illustrated book was first printed in 1957 and encouraged young people, including future Congressman John Lewis, to stage nonviolent protests.

It wasn’t gasoline—but moonshine—that fueled the growth of stock car racing in Appalachia and led to the rise of NASCAR.

The program was designed to aid American farmers and businesses—as well as the hungry—and had its largest expansion under a Republican president.

A largely tolerant and merciful ruler, Persian king Cyrus the Great established one of the largest empires in world history.

Tens of thousands of Filipinos answered the call to fight in World War II when the Philippines was an American commonwealth.

Jackie Robinson may have kept silent in the face of racial bigotry in his first two seasons after breaking baseball’s color barrier, but after 1949 he was quiet no longer and became a powerful voice for civil rights.

Look back at the moment Hank Aaron surpassed the immortal Babe Ruth.

These are the places where top officials planned to evacuate to the event of a nuclear attack.

The Founding Father’s beloved Virginia estate doubled as a focal point for his experiments in architecture, horticulture and invention.

The trees, a symbol of international friendship, initially arrived thanks to the work of travel writer Eliza Scidmore.

On October 30, 1974, Muhammad Ali, a.k.a. "The Greatest," beat George Foreman to reclaim the world heavyweight boxing title in a fight held in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo).

A Canadian is to thank for one of America’s favorite pastimes.

Even before the US entered World War II, German military intelligence had developed a plan to secretly infiltrate the East Coast and sabotage American war efforts.

How did Italy's wartime dictator die? And what happened to his corpse afterward?

After World War II, many Nazi war criminals changed their identities and escaped across the Atlantic. Only some were captured and brought to justice.

Balancing eggs. Exploding snowmen. A serpent of light. Around the globe, spring’s arrival is celebrated with unique traditions.

The British retreated from Boston on March 17, 1776, in the first major Patriot victory of the American Revolution.

These Civil War veterans orchestrated one of the most audacious acts of the Fenian Brotherhood in the Americas.

Explore 10 surprising facts about America’s 37th president.

The idea has nothing to do with farmers, for one thing.

The arrival of the National Zoo’s first giant pandas in 1972 marked a new chapter in U.S.-China relations.

The Native American was an Olympic medalist, NFL standout and a MLB player — he even won a ballroom dancing championship.

Much like at Pompeii, archaeologists uncovering the ancient Greek city of Selinunte have found a once-thriving metropolis frozen in time.

Check out 10 things you may not know about the Genoese explorer who sailed the ocean blue in 1492.

Take a look back at a landmark victory for American workers: the 1912 Bread and Roses Strike.

The Cultural Revolution was a Chinese sociopolitical movement from 1966 to 1976 led by Communist Mao Zedong.

According to new research by a Canadian historian, the 1918 flu outbreak that killed 50 million people originated in China.

The 1803 land deal may have been one of history’s greatest bargains, but doubling America’s territory drew sharp criticism—over cost, governability and more.

Although World War II forced the cancellation of the 1944 Summer Games, an unofficial Olympics took place in a most unlikely setting—a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

In the 1981 AFC Championship Game between the San Diego Chargers and Cincinnati Bengals, the teams and fans endured a minus 59-degree wind chill.

The Georgia governor ignited a national controversy over the participation of the University of Pittsburgh's only Black player in the 1956 Sugar Bowl.

Dick Plasman, who played for the Chicago Bears and Cardinals in the 1930s and 1940s, suffered a gruesome injury when he slammed into a wall headfirst during a game.

Look back at the National Football League’s humble origins in an Ohio auto dealership and its inaugural 1920 season.

'Bear' Bryant, who became a legend at Alabama, and future Pro Football Hall of Famers were among the all-star collection of talent.

First awardee Jay Berwanger passed on an NFL career, Michigan's Tom Harmon played himself in a movie and LSU's Billy Cannon was imprisoned for counterfeiting.

Critics said its introduction in 1906 would doom the game by making it less physical. Instead, it made the sport more popular than ever.

Check out ten surprising facts about the Olympic track and field champion.

From a gymnast with a wooden leg to a medalist busted for drinking beer, explore 10 surprising facts about the Summer Olympics.

Read the bizarre history of the first Olympic marathons.

Explore 10 surprising facts about the elite cold-weather competitions.

The balletic sport developed in Europe thousands of years ago. But an American turned it into the spectacle we know today.

From soldiers shooting at balloons to skiers towed by horses, these strange and sometimes dangerous sports were once part of the Winter Olympics.

On the 100th anniversary of the first Major League Baseball game at Fenway Park, explore eight surprising dates from the stadium’s hidden history.

Some of the Fall Classic’s most infamous mistakes were committed by MLB stars such as the New York Yankees' Babe Ruth and Mariano Rivera.

A remarkable chain of events links an attempted murder to the Bambino's called shot blast against the Chicago Cubs in 1932.

New York's 'traveling rock show' made headlines on and off the field and beat the Boston Red Sox in the World Series.

In the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the wild 1960 World Series, Bill Mazeroski of the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates toppled the mighty New York Yankees.

Weeks after a foul ball bloodied a teen who lived in Babe Ruth’s former farmhouse, the Boston Red Sox ended an 86-year title drought.

Explore 10 surprising facts about the famous barnstorming basketball team.

Fifty years ago today, basketball Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain achieved one of the most incredible feats in sports history: scoring 100 points in a single NBA game.

A killer backhand earned Vere St. Leger Goold a spot in a Wimbledon final.

One hundred years ago, Tennis Hall of Famers Dick Williams and Karl Behr survived the most famous shipwreck in history.

He vastly expanded the ancient Roman empire, but his assassination led to its downfall.

During 200 years of relative peace and prosperity, the Roman Empire reached the peak of its political and economic power.

Both his biological mother and his stepmother helped set Abraham Lincoln on the pathway to the presidency.

Fifty years after the Kennedy assassination, find out what happened to eight figures whose lives became entwined with the events in Dealey Plaza.

In 1983, dozens of Irish Republican Army prisoners broke out of the 'escape-proof' Maze prison.

Check out 10 surprising facts about the first female British prime minister.

A quarter-century before boldly leading Britain in World War II, Winston Churchill spearheaded a World War I military debacle—Gallipoli.

A new book details 25-year-old Winston Churchill’s exploits in the Boer War and his dramatic escape from a prisoner-of-war camp that made him a British hero.

On the anniversary of Churchill’s funeral, look back at the day when Great Britain said farewell to the man who defended the country from the Nazis in World War II.

As the United Kingdom celebrates the 60-year reign of Queen Elizabeth II, take a look back at the country’s last Diamond Jubilee—Queen Victoria’s in 1897.

For five days in December 1952, the Great Smog of London smothered the city, wreaking havoc and killing thousands.

Forty years after the Concorde’s first commercial flight, read about the rival Soviet “Konkordski” and the Cold War race to build the world’s first supersonic jet.

Take a look back at one of history’s most notorious serial killers.

A book author claims to have solved one of history’s coldest cases and unmasked the identity of Jack the Ripper.

The notorious gangster was recruited as an FBI informant. It turned it out that corrupt FBI agents were the ones informing him.

Thieves stole 13 masterpieces worth $500 million from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. The case remains unsolved.

The “Night of Broken Glass” was a Nazi pogrom that foreshadowed the Holocaust.

Henryk Ross risked his life to take thousands of secret photographs inside the ghetto at Lodz, Poland.

Douglass looked back on September 3, 1838 as the day when his “free life began,” but he encountered several close calls during his journey to freedom.

A half-century after Congress banned the slave trade, a converted racing yacht defied American law in 1858 and made the last documented voyage of an American slave ship.

An investigation has revealed that one of Colonial New England’s most aristocratic families participated in the slave trade.

The ritual grew as ownership of automobiles and then mass production of portable grills and plastic coolers soared.

Tall and gangly, with rough-edged frontier roots, the 16th president was an easy figure to caricature.