The Great Depression, which lasted in the United States from 1929 to 1939, was a time of intense scarcity. Jobs, money, and food were in short supply, so people had to reinvent their menus to survive the prolonged economic downturn. Food that people wouldn’t have earlier considered eating was silently gobbled down as they made […]
10 Strange Foods of the Great Depression Read More »
In June 1995, the neighborhood of Golf Manor, Michigan, was suddenly confused as several men converged on a small house in Commerce Township. Three men wore ventilated moon suits and swarmed the house’s backyard. They then started breaking down the door of a shed with electric saws. The house belonged to Michael Polasek and Patty
A Backyard Project That Went Radioactive: David Hahn’s Nuclear Reactor Read More »
The renowned American frontiersman and fur trapper, Hugh Glass, is widely recognized as an emblematic figure of the American frontier era and a beloved folk hero. He gained widespread fame after enduring a brutal bear attack that left him abandoned by his fellow trappers and presumed dead. Despite the near-fatal injuries, Glass summoned the courage
From trapper to legend: The iconic life of Hugh Glass Read More »
How hard can it be to transport a 20-pound metal cylinder 700 miles in less than seven days? In today’s world, we would order it on Amazon, and it could be on your doorstep in a matter of hours. Now remove roads and railroads from that equation and add extreme temperatures. This was the challenge
Nome Serum Run: How dog sleds saved thousands of lives Read More »
The Panic of 1819 is considered the first Great Depression in the US. Along with the Banking Crisis of 1819, it was a nationwide economic crisis that left a lasting imprint on the country. It had its roots in many factors, including the Louisiana Purchase, Westward Expansion, loose bank lending practices, reduced wartime production after
The Panic of 1819: The United States’ First Great Depression Read More »
The encomienda system was a Spanish feudal system prevalent in the 16th century in the Americas. Although it was purported to benefit the Indigenous communities over which it ruled, it was, in essence, very thinly veiled slavery. It led to the Spanish conquistadors amassing land in the colonies and taking advantage of the labor of
What was the Encomienda System? Read More »
Imagine an institution renaming itself in honor of the boy it once attempted to bar in the name of racial segregation. In the summer of 1959, the Lake City Public Library in South Carolina refused a young 9-year-old boy from checking out books. But the boy wasn’t raised to submit to such harmful societal constructions
The extraordinary life of astronaut Ronald McNair Read More »
William Poole, aka Bill the Butcher, was a fierce knife-wielding gang leader in 19th-century New York City. He led the nativist street gang Bowery Boys, went on to rule the criminal underworld, and later got into politics. Bill’s larger-than-life presence was immortalized by actor Daniel Day-Lewis’ fictionalized portrayal of him as William “Bill the Butcher”
Bill the Butcher: The notorious life of William Poole Read More »
The end of World War II promised an era of peace in Asia and the West. The neutralization of Japan in the region led Korea to be under the control of two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. But what seemed an excellent decision to control the tides of war was the first
What caused the Korean War and how did the US get involved? Read More »
History has a long reach. The story of Georgia Tann, who ran a criminal enterprise from the 1920s to the 1950s to place thousands of babies taken from often-poor mothers with wealthy parents, still echoes today even though most of the babies she took are very elderly or gone. Early Years and Formulating the Scheme
Georgia Tann stole thousands of babies from the poor and gave them to the rich Read More »
