9 Facts About the Alexander Hamilton-Aaron Burr Duel
The duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr is perhaps the most famous duel in United States history.
The duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr is perhaps the most famous duel in United States history.
John Hay, Lincoln’s private secretary and assistant, was as devastated as the rest of the nation when his friend was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865. He wanted a memento to remember Lincoln by and paid $100 for six strands of hair removed from t
Today in 1893, the US Supreme Court ruled that the tomato was a vegetable, not a fruit. The relevant case (Nix v. Hedden) involved tariffs -- the US had an import tariff on vegetables, but not fruit. So when a tomato importer (the Nix family) claimed th
Popular culture has given us the idea that war used to be less vicious and more orderly. I don’t know about you, but when I think of the American Revolution, I can’t help but picture soldiers standing in straight single-file lines on either side of the ba
A friend came across this claymation video created by 11-year-old Jack, explaining Roman infantry tactics for his sixth grade Social Studies class. The video itself is fun (mainly when claymation non-Roman soldiers are killed); educational (he does expla
In 1887, intrepid reporter Nellie Bly pretended she was crazy and got herself committed, all to help improve conditions in a New York City mental institution.
In 1993, former Creedence Clearwater Revival singer John Fogerty found himself at the center of a case being argued before the United States Supreme Court.
Harry W. Coover receives from the National Medal of Science in the East Room of the White House, November 17, 2010. © Olivier Douliery/Pool/Corbis Super Glue inventor Dr. Harry Coover died Saturday at his home in Kingsport, Tennessee. He was 94. Matt Son
Each disaster led to more stringent laws or safety precautions, to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.
Note: This article was originally published in 2009. We're currently switching to a new hosting provider, and it's a messy process. So while we wait for the "OK, you can start posting again" note from the server migration people, we'll be putting up a few
At the risk of accidentally sounding biblical, we regret to report that gnomes have been banished from the garden.
Parish had a monster college career, but according to the NCAA, the games he played in never took place.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, my home sweet home, is home to its fair share of oddities (see exhibits A, B, C and D). But one of the strangest stories involves our southern border and the controversy that surrounded it for more than a century. The We
Charles Lindbergh was born 109 years ago today. In honor of the famed aviator’s birthday, let’s hop onto five things you might not know about The Lone Eagle.1. He Was Time’s First Man of the
Werner Herzog's latest documentary is about the Chauvet Cave, which is remarkable primarily for its cave paintings -- dating from the ice age, the paintings are surprisingly detailed, and some show a sort of "painterly" quality. In some cases, this effec
While we were wading through the origins of the names of the U.S. states last fall, reader Brit asked me where the North in North Carolina and North Dakota came from. We’re happy to oblige.
In the decades since the Adopt-a-Highway program was launched in 1985, it has helped keep America’s highways clean, saved taxpayers money, sparked a handful of free-speech battles, and even been featured on an episode of 'Seinfeld.' Here’s a brief history
In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel was spending $2,500 a month on rubber bands just to hold all their cash.
Anyone who spent time flipping channels and watching movies on cable during the 1980s and early 1990s probably remembers screening a few colorized films. The films, which had originally been shot in black-and-white, didn’t look quite the same as “real” c
It's hard to believe that IBM is 100 years old (well, nearly -- it turns 100 on June 16, 2011). Yet, watching this newly released 30-minute documentary, the point is driven home: IBMers were indeed there at many crucial points in American technological
The 'Duck Hunt' gun, officially called the NES Zapper, seems downright primitive next to today's technology. But in the late '80s, it filled plenty of young heads with wonder.
In 1965, Command Pilot Gus Grissom and Pilot John Young successfully piloted the Gemini 3 spacecraft on a four-hour and forty-three-minute mission into Earth’s orbit, completed a handful of tests of the craft’s capabilities and returned safely to solid gr
Winston Churchill had one of the most immediately recognizable faces of the 20th century, and you probably know all about his triumphs as a statesman and orator. Let’s take a look at five things you may not know about him, including how his mom tried to