American History
Eugene Debs Got 1M Votes for President While Jailed Under the Sedition Act
Eugene Debs received nearly one million votes for president in 1920 while serving a ten-year federal sentence — jailed under…
Victor Gruen Built America’s First Mall—Then Disowned What It Became
Victor Gruen fled Nazi Vienna dreaming of a pedestrian utopia and invented the enclosed American shopping mall at Southdale in…
Stream The Monuments Men: What the Real Unit Found in the Salt Mines
The 2014 film captures the spirit of the race to save Europe's art, but the real Monuments Men — and…
10 Stunning Facts About the Spanish Empire at Its Peak
At its height, the Spanish Empire covered 13.7 million square kilometres across four continents — nearly three times the size…
Revolutionary War Flags Were Improvised by Militias — Not One Seamstress
The Betsy Ross legend wasn't written down until 1870 — decades after her death. The real flags of the American…
Boston’s Great Molasses Flood of 1919 Killed 21 and Moved at 35 MPH
On January 15, 1919, a poorly built storage tank in Boston's North End exploded, unleashing 2.3 million gallons of molasses…
How Rudolf Abel Was Traded for Gary Powers on the Glienicke Bridge
On February 10, 1962, convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel crossed the fog-wrapped Glienicke Bridge toward U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers…
James Marshall’s Find at Sutter’s Mill Sparked a Rush That Moved 300,000 People
On a January morning in 1848, carpenter James Marshall crouched over a millrace at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California, and…
Klondike Gold Rush: 100,000 Stampeded In, Only 30,000 Survived the Journey
When gold was discovered in the Yukon in 1896, 100,000 desperate Americans stampeded north — but only 30,000 survived the…
The Korean War Armistice of 1953 Never Ended the War — and Still Hasn’t
On July 27, 1953, a U.S. general signed a ceasefire and walked away without a word — but the armistice…