Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.
On May 2, 2011, the United States military killed and buried Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader behind the 9/11 attacks. U.S. Special Forces took him out during a raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where he and some of his family were hiding out. After identifying his ...read more
The U.S. aviation industry got its start in the early 20th century not by transporting people, but by moving America’s mail. At first, airmail pilots flew in flimsy open-cockpit planes through every kind of weather—an experience that ranged from frequently harrowing to sometimes ...read more
At the turn of the 20th century, the United States was in the grip of a full-blown smallpox epidemic. During the five-year outbreak from 1899 to 1904, government health officials confirmed 164,283 cases of smallpox, but the real numbers may have been five times as high. To slow ...read more