World War I was unlike any conflict the world had ever seen. From 1914 to 1918, the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire were locked in a grueling battle against the Allied Powers—Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the ...read more

In the early morning hours of September 12, 1826, a Batavia, New York stoneworker named William Morgan went missing from the local jail. Morgan was not a man of importance. In fact, he was known as a bit of a drunk—a drifter who, according to historian and author of American ...read more

It turns out the hashtag was trending way before Twitter—a new discovery in a South African cave shows human’s earliest known drawing was a depiction of the now pervasive symbol, or at least very close to it. The extremely rare ancient etching of a red, cross-hatched pattern is ...read more

It’s said that one shouldn’t bring a knife to a gunfight, but what about potatoes? On April 5, 1943, the USS O’Bannon was equipped with 17 anti-aircraft guns, multiple torpedo tubes, depth charges and 5-inch 38 caliber deck guns, but it was uncooked spuds that helped save the ...read more

Over the course of the month-long World Cup, fans will cheer for every “golazo” and groan over every near miss, or defensive miscue. One thing most people outside of the pitch won’t lose sleep over, however, is the sport’s most important object: the ball. This year’s ball, the ...read more

Grover Cleveland’s Secret Son Just days after Grover Cleveland won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1884, the Buffalo Evening Telegraph published a shocking expose. The paper revealed that, a decade earlier, Cleveland allegedly sexually assaulted Maria Halpin, a woman ...read more

Jackie Robinson became the first African American to play in the Major Leagues on April 15, 1947, when he took the field in the top of the first inning against the Boston Braves. When Robinson took his spot at first base, he broke baseball’s 50-year-old color barrier, which not ...read more

Paleontologists excavating in Montana’s famous Hell Creek Formation have uncovered the score of a lifetime—one of the most preserved and complete juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex skeletons ever found. Although digging up remains of a T. rex in the area is not an uncommon feat, what ...read more

The world was first introduced to one of the most iconic characters in video game history in 1981. He wasn’t much, just a handful of colored pixels on a grainy screen, a figure trying to save his girlfriend from a giant ape named Donkey Kong. By the time the 1990s came around, ...read more

Chess is one of the oldest, and most revered games of strategy and analysis in the world. It’s a game so intricate that some spend their entire lives trying to master it. Nearly 60 years ago, a new player entered the game–one powered not by human intelligence and dedication, but ...read more

After 40 years, investigators used DNA to identify one of seven unnamed victims of 1970s serial killer John Wayne Gacy. James Byron Haakenson, previously known only as “Victim #24,” was 16 years old when he ran away from his Minnesota home in 1976. On August 5 of that year, he ...read more

A trillion tons of ice have calved away from the Larsen C, an ice shelf on the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. While the nearly 2,300 square mile iceberg that resulted isn’t the first massive chunk of ice to break off the Larsen Ice Shelf, it’s the largest—and potentially ...read more

June of 2017 marked the 10-year anniversary of the release of Apple’s iPhone, a device that not only revolutionized the way the world communicates, but also helped catapult Apple into a global economic and technological powerhouse. At a time when an estimated 700 million users ...read more

On May 21, 1979, thousands of members of San Francisco’s predominantly gay Castro District community took to the streets to protest the lenient sentence received by Dan White for the murders of local politician and gay rights activist Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. Their ...read more

To most Massachusetts residents—and long distance running enthusiasts—the third Monday in April is “Marathon Monday.” The Boston Marathon has shared the limelight in the Bay State with another celebration for the last 120 years: Patriots’ Day. So what is Patriots’ Day, and what ...read more

LikeJackie Robinson, these four men had to deal with unimaginable pressure. They all had teammates who wouldn’t shake their hands or play catch with them. They all had fans who ridiculed and threatened them with every slur in the book. None of them could stay in the same hotels ...read more

In 2014, amateur military historian Dan Mackay of Extreme Relic Hunters (ERH) was on the hunt for artifacts in a field near London, England, when he made a remarkable find. Buried next to a World War II-era anti-artillery gun were more than 14,000 individually inscribed, British ...read more

History of the Tomahawk cruise missile The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is an American-developed weapon classified as a cruise missile, which is an unmanned jet-propelled aircraft that uses guidance systems to seek and destroy targets. The missiles are approximately 21 ...read more

Although the ceremonies surrounding baseball’s Opening Day have been around since at least 1890, it took 20 years for the commander in chief to become part of the tradition. The first sitting president to throw a pitch was William Howard Taft. The corpulent commander in chief ...read more

You haven’t heard of him because his improbable rise wasn’t possible in America. Richmond was born into slavery on what’s today the New York borough of Staten Island on August 5, 1763. When the British landed there in 1776, at the start of the American Revolution, Richmond did ...read more

1. Linda the Librarian Teaches Sign Language. (1972) Many people gained their first exposure to sign language—and deafness itself—from Linda, a human character Sesame Street introduced in 1972. Played by Linda Bove, who is hearing impaired in real life, Linda was Sesame’s ...read more

1. Janet Guthrie—Racing Through the Glass Ceiling Janet Guthrie wasn’t the first woman to get behind the wheel of a race car, but she became the first woman to compete in NASCAR’s Winston Cup Series (known today as the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series), in the 1976 World 600 ...read more

Not only did William Shakespeare’s words stick, they branded the phrase with a dark and gloomy connotation that will forever make people uncomfortable. It’s probable that many people who use the phrase today don’t know it’s true origin. In fact, just about every pop culture ...read more

1. The first spring training was a spa compared to today’s version. In one form or another, spring training has always been a part of organized baseball. In the early days of the National League, which formed in 1876, spring training was quite different than today. Teams ...read more