Nearly 700 years after the Black Death swept through Europe, it still haunts the world as the worst-case scenario for an epidemic. Called the Great Mortality as it caused its devastation, this second great pandemic of Bubonic Plague became known as the Black Death in the late ...read more

Anne Hibbins was not popular in her Boston community in the mid-1600s. There was her privilege, her demanding standards and her penchant for speaking her mind. When Hibbins’ husband died in 1654, she became vulnerable—on June 19, 1656, she was hanged for being a witch. It would ...read more

When George Washington was elected as the first U.S. president in 1789, he won with a landslide, securing 69 out of 69 available electoral votes. But only a very limited part of the population had actually voted since white property owners were the only group of Americans ...read more

The soybean, known as a “miracle crop” for its versatility in different climates and the flexibility of its use in by-products, ranks among the United States’ top crops. While the plant traces back to China in the 11th century B.C., the United States emerged as the world’s ...read more

Few death-penalty executions can equal the controversy created by the electrocutions of spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1953. Accused of overseeing a spy network that stole American atomic secrets and handing those over to the Soviet Union, the couple were the only spies ...read more

Benedict Arnold was once a patriotic war hero valued by George Washington and admired by his men. But now his name is synonymous with traitor. What could have led Arnold to ruin his legacy by betraying his fellow Americans during the Revolutionary War? Analysis of Arnold’s ...read more