Mount Vesuvius, a volcano near the Bay of Naples in Italy, is hundreds of thousands of years old and has erupted more than 50 times. Its most famous eruption took place in 79 A.D., when the volcano buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii under a thick carpet of volcanic ash. Two ...read more
Today, the sorcerer’s stone is seen as fiction off the pages of Harry Potter. But in the Middle Ages, the quest for the sorcerer’s stone—or philosopher’s stone—was second only to the Holy Grail. The stone was made from a compound of secret ingredients, said to have the power to ...read more
Casey Anthony, a young, attractive single mother, stood accused of the murder of her adorable 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. Hailed as “the trial of the decade,” the proceedings generated a media feeding frenzy, as each new disclosure provoked a blizzard of coverage leading up to ...read more
According to some hypotheses, Titanic was doomed from the start by the design so many lauded as state-of-the-art. The Olympic-class ship featured a double bottom and 15 watertight bulkheads equipped with electric watertight doors which could be operated individually or ...read more
On April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany and the Central Powers. The United States would cast its lot with the Allies four days later. What caused President Wilson to abandon his policy of neutrality? Germany’s policy of unchecked submarine ...read more
Assault from the air didn’t begin with the era of the airplane. In Airborne Assault, we are taking a look at ancient weapons the came from the sky. The kite bomb was a medieval siege weapon that dropped bombs over cities from an airborne kite. Ever heard of ancient bouncing ...read more
Though the long-running war between Iran and Iraq had ended in a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in August 1988, by mid-1990 the two states had yet to begin negotiating a permanent peace treaty. When their foreign ministers met in Geneva that July, prospects for peace seemed ...read more
Illegal drugs have been around for centuries, serving both medical, spiritual and recreational purposes. Today, some drugs are legal while others carry a hefty felony charge with their usage—how did we get here? The turbulent 1960s saw an increase in the use and acceptance of ...read more
Despite having virtually no experience at sea, George Washington believed a navy would be one of the keys to disrupting British supply lines. “It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, ...read more
Women’s History Month can trace its origins to a small-town school event in Sonoma, California, in 1978. That year, presentations were given at dozens of schools, hundreds of students participated in a “Real Woman” essay contest and a parade was held in downtown Santa Rosa. A few ...read more
During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought together as allies against the Axis powers, but the relationship was tense. Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and Joseph Stalin’s thirst for power and territorial gains. The Soviets resented ...read more
Vatasyayana, an ascetic (and most likely celibate) scholar who lived in classical India around the 5th century A.D. was an unlikely candidate to have written history’s best-known book on erotic love. Little is known about Vatsyayana’s life, but in the “Kama Sutra”—actually a ...read more
Black History Month, or National African American History Month, is an annual celebration of achievements by black Americans and a time for recognizing the central role of African Americans in U.S. history. The effort to create the commemoration began in 1915, half a century ...read more
The federal prison on Alcatraz Island in the chilly waters of California’s San Francisco Bay housed some of America’s most difficult and dangerous felons during its years of operation, from 1934 to 1963. Among those who served time at the maximum-security facility were the ...read more
As legend has it, Rome was founded by Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, the god of war. Left to drown in a basket on the Tiber by a king and rescued by a she-wolf, the twins lived to defeat that king and found their own city on the river’s banks in 753 B.C. After killing his ...read more
How did mankind overcome the possibility of extinction, growing from just a few thousand people to the billions in our world today? How did a primate super species combine the capacity to communicate with the ability to create technology in order to speed up the process of ...read more
During World War II, a group of elite U.S. Army Rangers trained at an intensive commando school in Scotland, run by British fighters who wore distinctive green berets. Upon graduation from the program, the soldiers were rewarded with the same berets. Though the U.S. Army did not ...read more
From the catapult to the stealth fighter, the most basic and the most complex weapons have changed the course of history—and with it, our world. Whether it’s the Chinese fire tube or the U.S. Air Force’s laser-guided smart bombs, weapons have enabled humans to be the ultimate ...read more
Christmas in The 60s was a turbulent time, marked by the tragic loss of President John F. Kennedy and absent loved ones fighting in Vietnam. Glimmers of hope emerged, however, as Charlie Brown reminded us of the true meaning of Christmas and a live Christmas Eve broadcast from ...read more
The Maya Empire, centered in the tropical lowlands of what is now Guatemala, reached the peak of its power and influence around the sixth century A.D. The Maya excelled at agriculture, pottery, hieroglyph writing, calendar-making and mathematics and left behind an astonishing ...read more
Beginning around 800 A.D., seafaring warriors–known collectively as Vikings or Norsemen (“Northmen”)–left their Scandinavian homelands to seek their fortunes elsewhere. While the exact reasons for Vikings venturing out from their homeland are uncertain; some have suggested it was ...read more
The middle of winter has long been a time of celebration around the world. In ancient Rome, centuries before the birth of Jesus Christ, the week leading up to the winter solstice kicked off a month-long celebration called Saturnalia—a holiday in honor of Saturn, the god of ...read more
COMING SOON – Pearl Harbor 75th Anniversary In order to successfully complete their surprise attack, the Japanese needed to execute a series of interrelated and complex events. At any point, this world-altering mission could have been abandoned by the commander radioing the code ...read more
In response to the new trench warfare used during World War I, the British introduced the tank, an armored vehicle with conveyor-belt-like tracks over its wheels that could break through enemy lines and traverse difficult territory. The first tank prototype, “Little Willie,” was ...read more