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The U.S. Deported a Million of Its Own Citizens to Mexico During the Great Depression
In the 1930s, the Los Angeles Welfare Department decided to start deporting hospital patients of Mexican descent. One of the patients was a woman with leprosy who was driven just over the border and left in Mexicali, Mexico. Others had tuberculosis, paralysis, mental illness or ...read more
The Soviet Response to the Moon Landing? Denial There Was a Moon Race at All
You’ve probably heard of conspiracy theories that the moon landing was a hoax (those are false, and easily debunked). But have you heard the one about how the moon race was itself a hoax, because the Soviet Union was never trying to get to the moon in the first place? Or at ...read more
Why Civil Rights Activists Protested the Moon Landing
More than a million people gathered along Florida’s Space Coast to watch the Apollo 11 lift off from Launchpad 39A on the sunny afternoon of July 16, 1969. The event was the culmination of a technological race started by President John F. Kennedy in 1963 with the goal of beating ...read more
When the Golden Gate Bridge Flattened by 7 Feet—and Other Surprising Facts About the San Francisco Icon
The 1.7-mile-long Golden Gate Bridge, an icon of the San Francisco Bay region, connects the city of San Francisco to Marin County, California. At its completion in 1937, the suspension bridge was considered an engineering marvel—the longest main suspension bridge span in the ...read more
How a Trio of Hellish Earthquakes Prompted America’s First Disaster Relief Act
In the early hours of December 16, 1811, the residents of New Madrid, a Mississippi River town once part of the Louisiana Territory, rushed from their homes as the ground rolled beneath their feet. Trees were uprooted and thrown to the ground. Huge chasms opened in the earth, ...read more
When Hollywood Studios Married Off Gay Stars to Keep Their Sexuality a Secret
During the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1920s, actors and actresses shot to fame—but only if they tailored their images to the demands of the big studios. For LGBT actors, that often meant marrying a person of the opposite sex. The early 20th century represented a unique time ...read more
How Segregated Schools Led to Busing—And Backlash
Kids have been riding buses to get to school since the 1920s. But the practice became politically charged when desegregation busing, starting in the 1950s, attempted to integrate schools. The 1954 U.S. Supreme Court landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas ...read more
Why the Nazis Were Obsessed With Twins
“Twins! Twins!” Ten-year-old Eva Mozes clung to her mother amidst the chaos of the selection platform at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Before arriving at the death camp, she had been stuffed into a train car on a seemingly endless journey from Hungary. Now, she and her twin sister Miriam ...read more
Two Viking Boat Graves—With a Warrior Inside—Found in Sweden
Archaeologists digging near the Swedish village of Gamla Uppsala have unearthed two rare boat burials from the Viking Age. Inside one of them, which was found intact, were the remains of a man, a horse and a dog, as well as several weapons and a comb. Though boat burials date ...read more
5 Terrifying Moments During the Apollo 11 Moon Landing Mission
As the dust settled on the moon’s Sea of Tranquility after the landing engine of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module shut down, Commander Neil Armstrong’s steely voice crackled over the radio at Mission Control, a quarter of a million miles away: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle ...read more
Vicki Golden Sets New Motorcycle Firewall Record
Champion freestyle motocross athlete Vicki Golden shattered a 12-year-old record Sunday night, smashing her motorcycle through 13 wooden walls of fire—the most ever in history. Her fiery, high-stakes motorcycle stunt was the featured event in an ambitious night of daredevilry ...read more
Speeding Through Flames: What to Expect from Evel Live 2
It takes a special kind of crazy to willingly—and repeatedly—crash a motorcycle through burning boards. Flaming debris can settle in a rider's lap. Impact at even moderate speeds can cause concussion. And with all that smoke, it can be as good as driving blind. That is—if you ...read more
Why the Air Force Almost Blasted the Moon with an H-Bomb
Detonating a thermonuclear weapon on the moon? It sounds like the bizarro scheme of a deranged comic-book villain—not a project initiated inside the United States government. But in 1958, as the Cold War space race was heating up, the U.S. Air Force launched just such an ...read more
Why Do We Celebrate July 4 With Fireworks?
It’s hard to imagine Independence Day without fireworks. But how did this tradition get started? As it turns out, setting off mini-explosions of all shapes and colors (but particularly red, white and blue) on July 4 goes back almost as far as American independence itself. ...read more
How Border-Crossing Became a Crime in the United States
In the early 20th century, it wasn’t a crime to enter the U.S. without authorization. Though authorities could still deport immigrants who hadn’t gone through an official entry point, they couldn’t be detained and prosecuted for a federal crime. But that all changed in 1929 when ...read more