When business legend John Jacob Astor died in 1848, he was hailed as a titan of trade and praised as a sharp salesman with a taste for philanthropy. “There are few men whose biography would prove more instructive or more acceptable for the present age than the life of John Jacob ...read more
History Flashback takes a look at historical “found footage” of all kinds—newsreels, instructional films, even cartoons—to give us a glimpse into how much things have changed, and how much has remained the same. No matter the decade, one thing never changes: parents will always ...read more
Armed servicemen of the Vietnam War used drugs more heavily than any previous generation of enlisted U.S. troops. From heroin to amphetamines to marijuana, drugs were so commonplace among the troops that, in 1970, liaison to the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Egil Krogh ...read more
The Woodstock Music Festival began on August 15, 1969, as half a million people waited on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York, for the three-day music festival to start. Billed as “An Aquarian Experience: 3 Days of Peace and Music,” the epic event would later be known simply as ...read more
Debbie Reynolds had just landed the role of a lifetime—and she was exhausted. The 19-year-old had been cast as Kathy Selden, the female lead in Singin’ in the Rain, and she had big shoes to fill. Her partner was none other than the very seasoned, astonishingly talented Gene ...read more
From the inauguration of Donald Trump to the first total solar eclipse to traverse the Lower 48 in nearly a century, 2017 was a year for the history books. Here we review the biggest news in politics, culture and science this year. Politics Trump’s inauguration: After a ...read more
This week, Senator Cory Booker introduced legislation to legalize marijuana nationwide. If passed, the New Jersey’s Democrat’s bill would “expunge federal marijuana convictions and penalize states with racially-disparate arrest or incarceration rates for marijuana-related ...read more
When the United States first launched the “War on Drugs” nearly five decades ago, not even the cleverest conspiracy theorists could have imagined the far-reaching consequences the campaign would have around the world. From the CIA allowing drug traffickers to flourish in exchange ...read more
While much of the media is focused on Trump’s Russian skullduggery, America has quietly found itself enmeshed in the worst drug epidemic in our history. Drug overdoses, mostly from increasingly lethal opioids, now kill more people than guns and traffic accidents. A recent ...read more
MK-Ultra was a top-secret CIA project in which the agency conducted hundreds of clandestine experiments—sometimes on unwitting U.S. citizens—to assess the potential use of LSD and other drugs for mind control, information gathering and psychological torture. Though Project ...read more
LSD, or lysergic acid diethylamide, is a hallucinogenic drug that was first synthesized a Swiss scientist in the 1930s. During the Cold War, the CIA conducted clandestine experiments with LSD (and other drugs) for mind control, information gathering and other purposes. Over ...read more
Heroin, morphine, and other opiates trace their origins to a single plant—the opium poppy. Cultivation of the plant dates back to the earliest years of human civilization, and opium use was well known in ancient Mesopotamia. The narcotic drug has been used both recreationally ...read more
A Japanese chemist first synthesized methamphetamine—also called meth, crank, crystal meth or speed—from another stimulant in 1893. Methamphetamine was used early on as a medical treatment for narcolepsy, asthma and as a weight-loss drug. During World War II, the Allies and Axis ...read more
The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. The movement started in the 1970s and is still evolving today. Over ...read more
The “Just Say No” movement was one part of the U.S. government’s effort to revisit and expand the War on Drugs. As with most anti-drug initiatives, Just Say No—which became an American catch phrase in the 1980s—evoked both support and criticism from the public. The 80s Crack ...read more
Drug trafficking in the United States dates back to the 19th century. From opium to marijuana to cocaine, a variety of substances have been illegally imported, sold and distributed throughout U.S. history, often with devastating consequences. Early Opium Trade in the United ...read more
German chemists originally synthesized MDMA, or ecstasy, for pharmaceutical purposes in 1912. During the Cold War, the CIA experimented with MDMA as a psychological weapon. Ecstasy had become a popular party drug by the late 1980s, and it’s recreational use is often associated ...read more
Marijuana, also known as cannabis or pot, has a long history of human use. Most ancient cultures didn’t grow the plant to get high, but as herbal medicine, likely starting in Asia around 500 BC. The history of cannabis cultivation in America dates back to the early colonists, ...read more
Cocaine is a stimulant drug that’s made from the leaves of the South American coca plant. For thousands of years, indigenous people in the Amazon Rainforest and Andes Mountains have chewed coca leaves to get an energetic high. European scientists first isolated cocaine from coca ...read more
Many “420” revelers don’t know the origins of the word, but have vague recollections of once-heard tales about its origins. Some believe it’s the number of active chemicals in marijuana, others that it’s based on teatime in Holland. Some reference the birthday of Adolf Hitler ...read more
On February 22, 2014, one of the world’s most-wanted criminals, Joaquin “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzmán Loera, head of the Sinaloa cartel, the world’s biggest drug trafficking organization, is arrested in a joint U.S.-Mexican operation in Mazatlán, Mexico, after outrunning law ...read more
Have you ever been in search of, shall we say, a natural high? Are you looking for some extra excitement in your grilled fish dinner? Want more out of your spice rack? This week, we’re looking at some very different foods that share a common trait. These intoxicating foods can ...read more
The hippies and other counterculture movements weren’t the only groups to experiment with mind-altering substances. Starting in 1953, the Central Intelligence Agency conducted research on psychedelic drugs as part of a top-secret behavior modification program codenamed MK-ULTRA. ...read more
In Basel, Switzerland, Albert Hofmann, a Swiss chemist working at the Sandoz pharmaceutical research laboratory, accidentally consumes LSD-25, a synthetic drug he had created in 1938 as part of his research into the medicinal value of lysergic acid compounds. After taking the ...read more
