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Why Did US Forces Bury Osama Bin Laden’s Body at Sea?
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
How America's Aviation Industry Got Its Start Transporting Mail
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
The First ‘Vaccine Passports’ Were Scars from Smallpox Vaccinations
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
Prince Philip: From Controversial Consort to Royal Stalwart
Philip Mountbatten married then-Princess Elizabeth in 1947 and the pair's marriage became the longest royal union in history. Just as his wife is the longest-serving British monarch, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was the longest-serving royal consort in British history. ...read more
Prince Philip, Outsider Who Became England’s Longest-Serving Royal Consort, Dies at 99
Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, died April 9, 2021 at the age of 99. He married the future queen in 1947 and served steadfastly by her side for more than 70 years, as she became the longest-serving monarch in British history. As Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of ...read more
9 Unexpected Things Navy SEALs Discovered in Osama bin Laden’s Compound
When Seal Team Six carried out a raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011, they not only killed the al Qaeda leader. While under immense time pressure to vacate the premises before Pakistani military arrived, they quickly swept up a treasure trove ...read more
9 New Deal Infrastructure Projects That Changed America
The New Deal was a massive effort to lift the United States out of the Great Depression on several fronts. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plan created the Social Security Administration to protect older Americans financially, and used the Agricultural Adjustment Act to help ...read more
How the Erie Canal Was Built With Raw Labor and Amateur Engineering
In 1809, when President Thomas Jefferson reviewed New York’s ambitious plans for a more than 360-mile canal connecting the Hudson River (and therefore New York Harbor) to the Great Lakes, he dismissed it as “little short of madness” and refused to authorize federal funding. Less ...read more
8 Events that Led to World War I
World War I, which lasted from 1914 until 1918, introduced the world to the horrors of trench warfare and lethal new technologies such as poison gas and tanks. The result was some of the most horrific carnage the world had ever seen, with more than 16 million military personnel ...read more
8 Groundbreaking Contributions by Asian Americans Through History
Though the Gold Rush triggered the first major wave of Asian immigrants to the United States in the 1840s, their presence in America predates the country itself. For example, in 1763, facing a life of forced labor and imprisonment during the Spanish galleon trade, a group of ...read more
Did William Henry Harrison Really Die From Pneumonia?
It’s common wisdom that William Henry Harrison delivered one killer of a speech after being sworn in as the ninth president of the United States—and it had nothing to do with anything he said. Ignoring the advice of vigilant mothers everywhere, “Old Tippecanoe” swore off his ...read more
Who Invented Chicken Nuggets?
Chicken nuggets are a quintessentially American food: easily mass produced and a quick, convenient protein source that can be eaten on the go. A staple of fast food restaurants and grocery freezer aisles for decades, they weren’t always on America’s dinner plates and children’s ...read more
How the Seven Deadly Sins Began as 'Eight Evil Thoughts'
In the fourth century, a Christian monk named Evagrius Ponticus wrote down what’s known as the “eight evil thoughts”: gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sloth, sadness, vainglory and pride. Evagrius wasn’t writing for a general audience. As an ascetic monk in the Eastern Christian ...read more
Why the Roaring Twenties Left Many Americans Poorer
In August 1929, Ladies Home Journal published an article titled “Everybody Ought to Be Rich.” In it, businessman John J. Raskob told Americans that if they invested $15 in the stock market every month, in 20 years they could have $80,000 (over $1 million today). Raskob insisted ...read more
The 16-Year-Old Chinese Immigrant Who Helped Lead a 1912 US Suffrage March
In 1900, at a time when the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned most Chinese immigration and reflected a climate of deep anti-Asian prejudice, 9-year-old Mabel Ping-Hua Lee came to America from China on a scholarship to attend school. At 16, she would cement her place in women’s ...read more