Retropod

The history of subpoenas, and the fiery Congressional hearings that have captivated Americans for centuries began with a Founding Father raising his hand to say, “Investigate me!”

Sexual harassment has been existed in showbiz as long as there have been bright lights.

In the 19th century, publications both reputable and scandalous routinely blackmailed society figures caught in compromising circumstances.

Some 50 million people are projected to fill out a March Madness bracket this year. As you finish filling out yours, you might want to tip your pencil and say thanks to the late and loud Staten Island bar owner Jody …

Harper Lee's classic novel has been causing controversy for as long as its been in print. Here's a look at the history of banning "To Kill a Mockingbird."

North Korea has long been a superpower when it comes verbal attacks.

There’s one thing that you can’t have delivered anymore that was totally normal to send by mail in the early 1900s.

Thurgood Marshall, the first African American member of the Supreme Court, took the constitutional oath of office from Hugo Black, a white associate justice who had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

In 1978, Marilyn Loden gave new meaning to an image women have fought for decades.

Edythe Eyde, also known by her pen name Lisa Ben, was a visionary who fought to make lesbians visible in pop culture decades before most others had …

The deadliest wildfire in U.S. history wasn’t in California.

President Abraham Lincoln had to worry about the first lady being a leaker, and it was quite a scandal.

If the order for a nuclear attack is issued, the soldiers operating the launch machine have no choice but to fire. Or do they?

In 1926, the United States received a birthday card signed by 5.5 million Polish people.

Buildings that stand as symbols of American democracy - the White House, Mount Vernon and Monticello, to name a few - were erected with the labor of …

A dog and a cadaver deserve credit for their contributions to the invention of the telephone.

Jesse James, the most famous outlaw in history, was eventually foiled by a picture hanging crooked on a wall.

President Trump made history when he nominated a woman to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency. But while a woman leading the CIA was once unthinkable, female spies have made enormous, overlooked …

Oscars night is probably the one moment around the world when people become really interested in envelopes.

The history of social media began in 1844, when Samuel F.B. Morse sent a message from Washington to Baltimore. It said, "What hath God wrought?"

Sonja Henie won three Olympic gold medals and 10 world championships, and turned her star power into as career as one of Hollywood's biggest movie …

To understand the gruesome history of the death penalty, it is essential to comprehend how badly Thomas Edison wanted to zap George Westinghouse.

Whether you believe in this stuff or not, the many accounts that have spilled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over two centuries give ghosts an undeniable place in the country’s history.

Historians and national security analysts have been re-examining one particular forgotten moment in the history of U.S. and North Korea conflict.

The Kinneys married in Washington, D.C., in 1874. Then, they were arrested back home in Virginia for violating the state’s laws. They fought the …

Dr. Spock - not the guy from Star Trek - was at one time America's most beloved pediatrician. A whole generation of children was raised on his …

During World War I, the Marines Corps needed help on the home front while men were fighting overseas. Opha May Johnson was the first woman in line.

In 1812, Philadelphia was outfitted with the latest in plumbing technology - a network of wooden pipes to carry water throughout the city.

Back in the 1830s, Jim Crow wasn't yet a symbol of inequality. He was a fictional character in minstrel shows who, to entertain his audiences, …

A full year after the King James Bible was printed in 1631, people discovered an error.

The president's State of the Union started as a simple report on the condition on the nation; overtime, the address became a moment to rally Congress and the public.

The woman who first introduced equal pay legislation in Congress had to fight to be taken seriously — and often failed.

In 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Union’s Air Defense Forces, trusted his gut and averted a global nuclear catastrophe.

A few days before his team took the field as huge underdogs in Super Bowl III, New York Jets quarterback Joe Namath made what was seen as an insane prediction at the time: "The Jets will win Sunday," he said. "I …

If you work in an office without offices, with just about everyone working in a large spare space full of stylish desks, straight lines and papers …

After the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, John Surratt traveled across three continents, wore disguises and used fake names for nearly …

If you’re like most Americans, you probably visit a grocery store once or twice a week. But you probably don’t know that one single grocery item is responsible for the rise of supermarkets as we know them.

Over the past seven decades, the Doomsday Clock has served as a metaphorical measure of humankind’s proximity to global catastrophe. Every year, scientists and nuclear experts set the clock's time after grappling over …

Pinball was once so vilified that it was banned in cities across the United States.

In the 1950s, Lester Wunderman became the king of direct mail advertising — the ancestor of today’s online targeted ads.

In the early days of the House, some congresspeople thought hats had no place atop the heads of representatives debating the great issues of the day. Hats, they argued, weren’t dignified.

When Eugene Cernan walked on the moon, he didn’t know he’d be the last astronaut to make the journey.

The name on Martin Luther King Jr.'s birth certificate was not Martin. Nor did the document include the middle name Luther.

When Alexander Hamilton argued in favor of lifetime tenures for Supreme Court justices, he probably didn’t foresee them living past their prime.

More than a century ago, Carry Amelia Nation — hatchet in hand — chopped the country toward temperance.

Once upon a time, people walked between the U.S. and Canada over a frozen Niagara Falls. But one day, that all changed forever.

Adolf Hitler's mother may be the only person he genuinely cared for.

For decades, the boundary between Mexico and the United States was little more than an imaginary line in the sand.

When a steel industry strike threatened military production during the Korean War, and Congress couldn’t come to an agreement, President Truman had a …

Lego started as a company that made wooden toys, and grew into an empire of plastic building blocks.

It doesn't seem like a big deal today, but 1930s America lived in fear of the male nipple.

John Calhoun’s rodent experiments revolutionized the way we think about social behavior and the impact of growing populations.

Nancy Grace Roman was one of NASA’s first female astronomers and was a key figure in the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.

At 112-years-old, Richard Overton was the oldest living World War II veteran.

Throughout American history, speakers of the House have pounded their gavels so hard in search of order that they wind up smashing the gavel itself into smithereens.

Dorothy Kenyon was an early leader in the legal fight for women's rights.

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, we look back on the assassination …

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, an episode co-hosted by Madeline …

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, our episode marking the date Dr. …

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, doughnuts. They aren’t just …

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, Ida B. Wells, who was an …

We're taking a little break over the holidays to look back on some of the best Retropod episodes from 2018. Today, the story of Caroll Spinney and …

In the 1950s, a child trying to call Santa Claus accidentally called NORAD and changed Christmas Eve forever.

During the first Christmas of World War I, a miracle took place all along the Europe’s Western Front.

A new punctuation mark called the interrobang found its way onto some typewriters in the 1960s, but it never caught on.

In 1875, Ulysses S. Grant hired a special prosecutor to investigate the Whiskey Ring scandal. Furious with his findings, Grant had him fired.

Before 1913, the presidential press conference didn’t exist. But a president who liked reporters changed that.

After being fired from his job for being gay, Frank Kameny took his battle for equality to the nation’s highest court.

After receiving complaints about carriages driving too fast, Washington D.C. policeman William H. West arrested a presidential speed demon.

In 1859, the House went to war over Rep. John Sherman’s bid for leadership.

In Houston, Ray Hill was a colossal character. He even adopted "citizen provocateur" as a formal title.

Fritz Kuhn was the leader of the pro-Nazi group known as the German American Bund. He was a hero to his audience, and a scourge on the world to most others.

Weeks before Thanksgiving, 1959, cranberries were declared unsafe to eat. The race was on to save America’s favorite holiday side dish.

Toys R Us founder Charles Lazarus had no idea how big the toy industry would become.

Augustus Tolton’s miraculous life took him from slavery to the brink of sainthood.

News traveled so slowly in 1826 that the former president was buried days before his son, sitting president John Quincy Adams, got word of his death.

Bush, who died last week, is being fondly remembered for his cool demeanor and a boundless sense of humor.

George H.W. Bush had a lot of humility. So much that he developed a friendship with the comedian who impersonated him on SNL, Dana Carvey.

White House maid Elizabeth Jaffray not only cleaned up after presidents, she had an amazing insight into their appetites.

One of the grandest events the president presides over every year is the lighting of the National Christmas Tree.

Cats have endured some really mean stuff throughout history. Dogs should be thankful.

Martin Niemoller's simple and haunting words are often quoted in moments of intolerance. The story behind them is much more complicated.

Presidents throughout history have visited battlefields to better grasp conditions, reverse public doubt and signal that the country took war efforts seriously.

Benjamin Franklin, the most colorful of America's Founding Fathers, had a misunderstood, electrical and ultimately homicidal relationship with …

In the 1930s, traveling the nation's highways while black was fraught with peril. One postal worker, Victor Green, wrote a guidebook for African Americans after he faced discrimination on a road trip.

The story of how the anonymous soldier came to rest inside the famous tomb is almost as unknown as his identity.

Mark Twain first laid eyes on a “newfangled typing machine,” as he called it, sometime in the early 1870s.

The idea of food stamps was born out of a complicated paradox.

Rehnquist proposed. O'Connor said no.

Julia Grant didn't a have particularly good experience in the world of publishing. In fact, her memoir wasn’t even published in her lifetime.

Ronneberg started speaking about his experience in history in recent years.

Along with staggering death tolls, the "Great War" generated memorable literature, geopolitical upheaval, hope, disillusion, the Russian Revolution …

In 1895, the United States tried to deny an American citizen entry to the country even though he was born on U.S. soil.

Some believed that a lottery was more democratic than a vote.

Gerrymandering became a real electoral cudgel with a project called REDMAP.

Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, had two different approaches to taking back the House of …

Why, oh, why is daylight savings a thing? It's because for roughly two decades after World War II, no one had any clue what time it was.

Van Hoof said she also has seen George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Joan of Arc.

From the mid-1800s to well into the 20th century, the Capitol’s Demon Cat was the top dog of Washington ghost stories.

Mister Rogers’s approach to dealing with grief began with an American tragedy.

In 1956, New York City’s bomb squad used criminal profiling to catch a terrorist known as “The Mad Bomber.”

An 8-year-old found an ancient sword in a Swedish lake. Does that make her the queen?

She was short. He was tall. Her family wasn't well off. His was. She was a worrier. He had not a care in the world. If you looked up mismatch in the dictionary, Ruth Bader and Martin D. Ginsburg fit the definition …

Civil rights crusader Fannie Lou Hamer rivaled Martin Luther King Jr. in her command of audiences.

Before becoming a legendary big hitter, Babe Ruth was one of baseball’s best from the mound.

Caroll Spinney and his iconic character were inseparable for almost 50 years.

Family and friends had known about the president’s intimate relationship with Mary Peck for years, but whispers about their involvement were growing.

As Jacqueline Kennedy transitioned from wife-in-chief to widow-in-mourning, there was tension between whom she had been and whom she was allowed to become.

Emmett Till’s mother opened his casket and sparked the civil rights movement.

Photographer Boris Yaro shot the photo of Bobby Kennedy lying fatally wounded in the arms of Juan Romero, a busboy. The photo would haunt both of …

If you think your family is overrun with controlling lunatics, please meet the Romanovs.

More than 50,000 soldiers died during the Battle of Waterloo, but their teeth lived on.

In the fall of 1902, a year into his presidency, President Teddy Roosevelt set off to Mississippi for a bear-hunting vacation. It ended differently than planned.

It was rare to be a woman or African American covering the White House in the 1940s. Alice Dunnigan was both.

In the fall of 1957, as the world was moving on from World War II and the extermination of 6 million Jews, Sylvia Hermann knocked on the door of a modest home in Buenos Aires.

The debate was always about more than swimsuits.

Freddie Oversteegen was 14 when she joined the Dutch resistance, though with her long, dark hair in braids she looked at least two years younger.

The 25th Amendment passed after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Despite warnings of icebergs, the John Rutledge set sail from Liverpool, England, to New York.

Nine months before the Iran hostage crisis, Kenneth Kraus was held hostage in Iran for eight days.

Ida Lewis saved as many as 25 people during her service at the lighthouse. But her deeds have largely been forgotten.

In 1890, Henry Brown sailed through the confirmation process after being accused of shooting and killing someone in self defense.

William Liebenow rescued John F. Kennedy from an island filled with coconuts.

An American in the 1940s would not recognize the woman from the “We Can Do It!” poster as Rosie the Riveter.

When Gerald Ford took over the presidency after Richard Nixon’s resignation, he soon made a controversial choice: He pardoned Nixon.

No women served on the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1991. The ugly Anita Hill hearings changed that.

The Alien and Sedition Acts passed under President John Adams led to the arrests of more than two dozen people.

Lewis Hine posed as a Bible salesman or machinery photographer to expose the hardships of child labor.

All of George Washington’s Supreme Court nominees were confirmed in only two days, but half of them didn't show up on time.

Their 38-year marriage endured his incarceration and hers.

In 1925, 30,000 Klansmen descended on Washington, D.C. The city cheered their arrival.

Before an unnamed senior official in the Trump administration published the opinion piece, “I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration" in the New York Times, another mysterious anonymous author lit up …

In 1935, the Florida Keys ignored the threat of a looming hurricane. When the Category 5 storm made landfall, it left a wake of death and destruction.

It may be hard to believe, but one single event rocketed Einstein to fame.

Heather Penney was among the first female combat pilots in the country. On Sept. 11, 2001, she got a mission: Bring down the fourth hijacked plane hurtling towards Washington.

President Abraham Lincoln had two loving and supportive mothers in his lifetime. The second helped him cope with the tragic loss of the first.

This episode is co-hosted by Madeline Daly, who won Retropod trivia last Saturday at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Dallas prosecutor Henry Wade never intended to become a central figure in Supreme Court history.

In 1927, the world watched as two French aviators attempted the world’s first transatlantic flight.

The first mass police shooting on a U.S. college campus happened two years before the Ohio National Guard opened fire on student protesters at Kent …

In 1931, President Herbert Hoover started a program that would result in the illegal deportation of 1.8 million people to Mexico by the end of the …

Benjamin Lay wrote one of the first treatises against slavery in Colonial America, a time when many prosperous Pennsylvania Quakers were slave …

Ida B. Wells was an investigative journalist, an anti-lynching activist, a suffragette and a teacher.

Muhammad Ali was so close to going to jail for evading the draft. He has a Supreme Court clerk to thank for his freedom.

Thomas Blood had somewhat of a shady past. According to Ireland’s History magazine, he had a reputation for espionage and conducting terrorist campaigns — though many of his plans were foiled just in time.

At the Naval Academy, McCain was in a group called the “Bad Bunch” as he rebelled against his father’s expectations.

According to James Madison’s Virginia mansion Montpelier, Paul Jennings’ account reveals, “how the racial and gender hierarchies of the time …

Millions of British children were evacuated from London and other cities to escape the horrors of war. But the family separations seemed to impart long-term trauma that was in many cases as severe as if they had stayed …

When President Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” it was not seen as a historic moment. It took the actual fall of the wall to …

The greatest emoluments-clause dilemma of the 1800s involved two lions.

When Harry Truman became president in 1945, Southern members of Congress were delighted. They thought he’d be sympathetic to segregationists. He proved them wrong.

On display in Washington, D.C. are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and another document that details a fundamental institution in American life: baseball.

A hungry congressman didn’t get the breakfast he ordered. So he shot the waiter.

Back in 1941, a get-together that should have been fraught with uneasiness didn't turn out that way, which is surprising given the participants: …

Samuel Cutler Ward, also known as the “King of the Lobby,” is credited with shaping the craft of lobbying. And like lobbyist and former Trump …

A stamp collector’s discovery of the “Inverted Jenny” stamp created a headache for the U.S. Postal Service.

Mister Rogers’s approach to dealing with tragedy began with the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

The Alderson Federal Prison Camp has a history filled with powerful women who both pushed for the walls to be built there and served time within them.

During the American Revolution, more patriots died as prisoners of war in or around New York City than died in combat.

The one night that changed President Nixon’s fate has stuck with us as a reminder of the limits of presidential power.

A group of poor women in Puerto Rico were the first test subjects for the birth control pill. Were they guinea pigs or pioneers?

Sixty years after Congress welcomed its first woman, it welcomed its first baby.

The Boy Scout movement began 110 years ago on a tiny island just off the southern coast of England.

The anti-Semitic conspiracy theories surrounding the Rothschild family date all the way back to The Battle of Waterloo.

A professor at The University of Virginia was fatally shot by a student in 1840.

For over 50 years, the phrase “under God” was not a part of the Pledge of Allegiance. One sermon changed that.

This episode addresses the history of the bikini in, naturally, two parts.

Linda Brown and her father Oliver Brown are heroes of the civil rights movement. The backstory of the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of …

In 1951, a televised Senate hearing caught America’s attention.

It did not rain, at least not in Ellicott City, Md. That’s what made the 1868 flood so bizarre and unexpected.

One simple change to how the Supreme Court bench was designed made a world of difference to how the justices communicated.

On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis to support sanitation workers who were protesting for their civil rights. It was there that King delivered his last speech.

From all over the country, couples rushed to Las Vegas to get married. The demand for quickie weddings was at a fever pitch. But it wasn't Cupid's arrow causing the frenzy. It was the Vietnam War.

The deadliest wildfire in U.S. history wasn’t in California.

Whether you believe in this stuff or not, the many accounts that have spilled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over two centuries give ghosts an undeniable place in the country’s history.

She was just 5 feet tall. There was once a $40,000 bounty on her head. She suffered seizures throughout her life. She never gave up. She never gave in.

Washington and his fellow partiers racked up a bill of $15,000 in today’s currency celebrating the completion of the Constitution.

The justice who helped persuade a majority of the Supreme Court to legalize abortion found the practice unthinkable — personally, but not constitutionally.

At a White House luncheon, actress Eartha Kitt would not let the president or the first lady avoid the issue of the Vietnam War. She paid a heavy …

Oregon’s original constitution banned black people from the state, and the law stayed in the constitution for well over 100 years.

Eleanor Roosevelt held news conferences just for female reporters. The men were not impressed.

Spoiler: It did not go well.

In 1971, Stephen Burns was 18 years old and a newly minted voter. He was so jazzed to be a part of the Democratic process.

Somehow, in the depths of his personal misery towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson had found his powerful way with words again.

The Tuskegee syphilis experiment is a horrific piece of American history.

In a largely forgotten experiment, a group of students from Gallaudet University spent years helping NASA understand the mechanisms of motion sickness, and how to prevent it.

In 1998, the world briefly panicked over an asteroid that seemed headed for a close call with Earth. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

For the past 100 years, Mata Hari has been revered as the quintessential glamorous spy. But the real Mata Hari was much more complicated.

In April 1917, Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress, faced an agonizing choice. Should she, or should she not, vote for the United …

"The Birth of a Nation" depicted life after the Civil War in a way that glorified Klansmen. The film and its cultural impact led one man to conclude …

The very first pride parade was held in 1964 and was a bit … calmer … than what we think of today.

Charles Asbury’s newly digitized songs serve as a time capsule to the music of the 19th century.

Besides President Trump, whom do scholars scorn the most?

Doughnuts aren’t just delicious. They also helped America win a war.

For most of American history, no one was scared of sharks. One week - and one shark - changed that.

George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, two great presidents, had a lot in common: Both lost a parent as a child, both had a serious demeanor, and …

The man who called the police on the Watergate burglars never received the credit he deserved.

In December 1805, a handful of prominent politicians receive invitations to join President Thomas Jefferson for a White House dinner. The occasion …

It’s World War II, and you’re King George VI of England. You fear a Nazi invasion of England could come at any moment. How do you protect the crown …

The Kinneys married in Washington, D.C. in 1874. Then, they were arrested back home in Virginia for violating the state’s laws. They fought the …

The controversy around the murders of a Polish village's Jewish residents has centered on raw questions of complicity versus compulsion.

Suzanne Lenglen was physically ferocious. Always fashionable. A disrupter of convention.

When the White House was built over 200 years ago, it lacked certain modern conveniences. They got added in a hodgepodge of improvements over the years.

On the day before D-Day, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a speech to the troops that totally masked how nervous he actually was.

If you love gossip, and drama, and D.C. politics - this story is the gift that keeps on giving.

The Apollo 13 astronauts never said “Houston we have a problem.” Here’s why you think they did.

Robert F. Kennedy's death, which came just weeks after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., shocked the nation, especially those who looked to him to continue the national discussion over racial inequality.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, one of the most iconic moments of that chaotic year unfolded on television screens around the world.

By 1968, things were going badly for President Lyndon B. Johnson. Morale around the Vietnam War was sinking, and in Washington, political sharks were …

Walter Cronkite's reputation, his calm but authoritative voice, carried so much weight that in 1968 one single report helped persuade the American public that we weren’t winning the war in Vietnam.

In a year of extraordinary, chaotic moments this was a hopeful one - a beat-up country music star recording an album live at a troubled maximum …

'A Wrinkle in Time' author Madeleine L'Engle said she received 26 rejection letters from publishers.

In the early 1980s, President Ronald Reagan wasn’t exactly known for his racial sensitivity. But when he read about a family whose house was targeted by the KKK, he and the First Lady flew out to comfort them.

A mysterious stone memorial was found in 2006 in Washington, D.C. But who placed a memorial to Nazi spies on government property? And why?

Elaine Brown's takeover in 1974 was a pivotal moment for a woman in the black power movement. Although women had been a dynamic force for social and racial justice, they had often been overshadowed by men.

For many, memories of that devastating day quickly revert to that silent, flickering sequence captured by Abraham Zapruder. It is as chilling as it is familiar: the approaching convertible, the waves of a crowd about to …

When Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle are married this weekend, there will be one other royal on the world’s minds - Harry’s mother, the beloved Princess Diana.

The British royal wedding puts all eyes on the Windsor family - this time, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. But perhaps no royal is as controversial as Harry's grandfather, Prince Philip.

Another British royal wedding is coming up, so over the next few days, we'll explore a few moments from the history of royal marriages in Great Britain. Today, we meet Wallis Simpson, the last American divorcee to marry …

Area 51's secrets may not be alien in nature, but that doesn't make them any less mysterious.

Abolitionist John Brown wrote made a prophecy before he was executed.

Anna Jarvis would absolutely hate what Mother's Day has become.

Five brothers fought and died together on the same ship during World War II. Their final resting place was discovered earlier this year.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy devastated the nation. But the day before the shooting was just a normal day. It was particularly calm …

Harper Lee's classic novel has been causing controversy for as long as its been in print. Here's a look at the history of banning "To Kill a Mockingbird."

The original manuscript was auctioned off for $2.4 million this weekend to an NFL owner, after almost a year of legal wrangling.

Mark Hamill himself shares stories from Star Wars history. You can hear the full interview with Hamill on the Cape Up podcast with Jonathan Capehart.

Believe it or not, the relationship between politicians and the press has been worse. A lot worse.

Was the duke a Nazi sympathizer? Did he plot to dethrone his brother, King George VI? Did he really suggest more German bombing of Britain might end World War II?

Grant had an impressive resume on the battlefield, he was known to be a patsy when it came to helping job hunters. People used to walk right into the White House and ask the president to find them a job

The Doomsday Clock was created not by a scientist, but by an artist.

Mike is joined by a special guest to talk about how Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day began.

We dug through The Washington Post's archives and consulted the Pro Football Hall of Fame to bring you a rundown of the best presidential ballers.

Adolf Hitler's mother may be the only person he genuinely cared for.

In 1812, Philadelphia was outfitted with the latest in plumbing technology - a network of wooden pipes to carry water throughout the city.

The town of Chillicothe, Missouri, recently discovered they have a surprising claim to history: the creation of sliced bread.

In 1990, students protested the choice of the first lady as their commencement speaker, calling it anti-feminist. Her speech silenced the critics.

In October 1967, antiwar protesters announced that they would march en masse to the front steps of the Pentagon. and levitate it.
And then they would …

North Korea has long been a superpower when it comes verbal attacks.

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln was in a financial bind. Also, he was in a war. To raise money, he pushed for and won passage of an income tax …

George and his mother had an unusual relationship for the 1700s, more like what you might see in a sitcom from the 1970s. She was indispensable to …

Thurgood Marshall, the first African American member of the Supreme Court, took the constitutional oath of office from Hugo Black, a white associate justice who had once been a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

A German woman discovered that her childhood home was stolen from a Jewish family who fled Nazi Germany. Last year, she tracked down the address of …

President Abraham Lincoln had to worry about the first lady being a leaker, and it was quite a scandal.

The woman who first introduced equal pay legislation in Congress had to fight to be taken seriously -- and often failed.

Weevils, a voracious beetle found in fields and orchards, were the original target of sarin gas.

Over the past few months, historians and national security analysts have been re-examining one particular forgotten moment in the history of U.S. and …

The most thankless job might be that of the White House press secretary. Just ask Ron Ziegler.

Fifty years ago today, the civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis. Riots broke out across the country, but in …

On April 3, 1968, 50 years ago today, Martin Luther King, Jr. was in Memphis to support sanitation workers who were protesting for their civil rights. It was there that King delivered his last speech.

Throughout history, the reading of books has been a sort of armchair way measuring someone's intelligence. Here are stories of three former presidents at opposite ends of the reading spectrum. You can decide for …

One day a year, the White House grounds are truly turned over to the people - well, the kids. That day is the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, and …

One of baseball's most enduring mysteries surrounds a 17-year-old girl name Jackie Mitchell.

Ivanka Trump might be the only first daughter in American history to score a West Wing office, but she’s not the first presidential daughter to wield power in the White House.

At the beginning of the television age, “Meet the Press” dented the dominance of newspapers and thrilled news junkies with the you-were-there power of live broadcasting.

Andrew Higgins wasn't in the Army. He wasn't a paratrooper. He was a wild and wily genius, a tough, crafty, businessman. And he built the built the boats that brought troops ashore at Normandy on June 6, 1944.

The movement organized by survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., is not the first time that kids have taken a stand. History shows that …

If the order for a nuclear attack is issued, the soldiers operating the launch machine have no choice but to fire. Or do they?

Jesse James, the most famous outlaw in history, was eventually foiled by a picture hanging crooked on a wall.

Lawns have always been more than just grass.

Dr. Spock - not the guy from Star Trek - was at one time America's most beloved pediatrician. A whole generation of children was raised on his …

Martin Niemoller's simple and haunting words are often quoted in moments of intolerance. The story behind them is much more complicated.

Some 50 million people are projected to fill out a March Madness bracket this year. As you finish filling out yours, you might want to tip your pencil and say thanks to the late and loud Staten Island bar owner Jody …

President Trump made history Tuesday when he nominated a woman to become director of the Central Intelligence Agency. But while a woman leading the CIA was once unthinkable, female spies have made enormous, overlooked …

During World War I, the Marines Corps back home needed help while the men were fighting overseas. Opha May Johnson was the first in line.

Cats have endured some really mean stuff throughout history. Dogs should be thankful.

Why, oh, why is daylight savings a thing? It's because for roughly two decades after World War II, no one had any clue what time it was.

In 1978, Marilyn Loden coined a phrase that paints very image that women have been fighting for decades.

A dog and a cadaver deserve credit for their contributions to the invention of the telephone.

The deadliest wildfire in U.S. history wasn’t in California.

Oscars night is probably the one moment around the world when people become really interested in envelopes.

There’s one thing that you can’t have delivered anymore that was totally normal to send by mail in the early 1900s.

Edythe Eyde, also known by her pen name Lisa Ben, was a visionary who fought to make lesbians visible in pop culture decades before most others had …

Buildings that stand as symbols of American democracy - the White House, Mount Vernon and Monticello, to name a few - were erected with the labor of …

When the NRA was founded in 1871, its primary concern was not gun rights or the Second Amendment.

If you’re like most Americans, you probably visit a grocery store once or twice a week. But you probably don’t know that one single grocery item is responsible for the rise of supermarkets as we know them.

In the 1930s, traveling the nation's highways while black was fraught with peril. One postal worker, Victor Green, wrote a guidebook for African Americans after he faced discrimination on a road trip.

Sonja Henie won three Olympic gold medals and 10 world championships, and turned her star power into as career as one of Hollywood's biggest movie …

Katherine Graham's leadership in the decision to release the Pentagon Papers was the subject of the Stephen Spielberg film "The Post." But it was her leadership during the pressman's strike in 1975 that is perhaps the …

To understand the gruesome history of the death penalty, it is essential to comprehend how badly Thomas Edison wanted to zap George Westinghouse.

Whether you believe in this stuff or not, the many accounts that have spilled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue over two centuries give ghosts an undeniable place in the country’s history.

She was just 5 feet tall. There was once a $40,000 bounty on her head. She suffered seizures throughout her life. She never gave up. She never gave in.

Ski jumping involves flying more than 800 feet in the air and then landing on two feet, without dying. Where on earth did this sport come from?

From all over the country, couples rushed to Las Vegas to get married. The demand for quickie weddings was at a fever pitch. But it wasn't Cupid's arrow causing the frenzy. It was the Vietnam War.

In 1926, the United States received a birthday card signed by 5.5 million Polish people.

The history of social media began in 1844, when Samuel F.B. Morse sent a message from Washington to Baltimore. It said, "What hath God wrought?"

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