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The Wright Way to Fly
Cartoon of inventor Wilbur Wright as a bird The late 1800s and early 1900s were years full of innovation and excitement, as aviation hopefuls pulled out all the stops and strapped on their wings in the...
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The Search for Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa (center) and General John Pershing (right) in 1913, before Villa fell out of favor with the U.S. government On 10 March 1916, American newspaper coverage of the war raging in Europe was...
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Spiritual Medium Reveals Murderer
A sobering story with a mysterious side is found in this 1905 edition of the Washington Post. A 1905 article describes the desperate actions a guilty man takes when threatened by the revelations of a...
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The Expo
1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition 1904 saw one of the biggest worldwide celebrations in history. The St. Louis World’s Fair, more formally called the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, was an...
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The London Beer Flood
On the 17th of October, 1814, a flood that no one saw coming gushed into the streets of St. Giles parish in London, England. On Tottenham Court Road, one of the huge vats in the Meux and Company...
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The Unsinkable Ship
RMS Titanic On April 15, 1912, 101 years ago this week, a ship bigger than any before it scraped along an iceberg and within hours sank below the frozen water. Around 2,200 passengers and crew embarked...
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Miss Manfield’s Misfortune
Martha Mansfield was a promising young American actress during the 1910-20s. She was born Martha Ehrlich in New York City, and by the age of eighteen showed an affinity for acting. Her career began on...
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The Camel Experiment
Headline from the San Francisco Chronicle, 9 June 1893 Up through the early 1900s, claims occasionally cropped up of camel sightings in the American Southwest. But could they have been true? Were there...
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The Unexpectedly Easy Capture of Guam
From the San Francisco Chronicle, 3 August 1898 It may have been one of history’s easiest surrenders. In 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, Captain Henry Glass and his cruiser, the USS...
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Elk and Grizzly Chairs
Seth Kinman posing with his hunting trophies Seth Kinman was a mountain man’s mountain man. Dressed in buckskins for the majority of his life and always sporting a thick beard, he was known for his...
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The Rebel Yell
Headline from the Atlanta Constitution, 1915 Some say it sounded like woh-who-ey, others like ki-yi. Still others recalled it being a “penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curling noise” or “a...
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A Powerful 24 Notes
General Daniel Butterfield, who created Taps It has become an iconic sound: that of a lone bugler sounding out Taps at American military funerals and memorials. But where did the 24-note melody come...
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Preventing the Spanish Flu
American Red Cross removing a victim of Spanish Influenza from home The Spanish Influenza was plaguing those on the battlefields, but it was also a major pandemic to those back home as well. Like the...
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Drumming Out
Benjamin Ditcher being drummed out of the army during the Civil War In the summer of 1863, Benjamin Ditcher of the 55th Massachusetts Volunteers was marched out of camp to drums and a fife with a sign...
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The Greatest Single Hero
Samuel Woodfill (fourth from left) and others receive the Medal of Honor from General Pershing, 1919 Deemed by General Pershing as the “greatest single hero in the American forces” of World War I,...
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The Original Girl Detective
The person standing holding the pole is believed to be Kate Warne disguised as a man. This is the only known photo of Warne. Allan Pinkerton is seated in front of her. Much of Kate Warne’s life is...
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Human Valentine
Valentine’s Day lovebirds—from the Chicago Daily Tribune, February 1922 Are you fretting this Valentine’s Day about the perfect gift to give that special someone? The usual flowers, red teddy bears and...
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A One Man Army
1814 engraving of Peter Francisco fighting Tarleton’s Raiders Before there was the legend of the mighty Paul Bunyan, there was Peter Francisco. But unlike the Bunyan of tall-tale fame, Peter Francisco...
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Malingering Again
Partial headline from a San Francisco Chronicle article on malingering Malingering, as we learned in a previous spotlight, was when a soldier faked or exaggerated an illness or disability in order to...
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The Black Terror
The Black Terror At $8.63, the Black Terror was probably the cheapest ship the U.S. Navy ever built. But its price tag shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the dramatically named gunboat was...
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