Becky Little
Becky Little is a journalist based in Washington, D.C. Follow her on Bluesky.
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Why go to the trouble of tracking and killing an animal when a saber-tooth cat can do the job instead?
From Asia to the United States, 'eighth wonders' span the globe.
It killed 100,000 people in the direct impact. But it led to tens of millions more deaths later.
The U.S. Weather Bureau got the forecast completely wrong.
Category 5 hurricanes pack the strongest winds but only a handful have been recorded making landfall in the United States.
The first recorded hurricane forecast was issued by a Jesuit priest in 1875. A series of critical tools have since refined the science.
Missionaries laid the foundation for communities and governance in the American frontier.
Feral swine. Rodents of unusual size. And a python that swallowed three deer.
Diwali, also known as the Festival of Lights, is primarily celebrated by followers of the Hindu, Sikh and Jain faiths.
The tri-colored confection was designed to look like chicken feed and came out at a time when about half of Americans worked on farms.
Long before MS-13, Bobby Kennedy battled J. Edgar Hoover to take on the Mafia.
Holmes allegedly killed as many as 200 by luring visitors to his lair during the Chicago World's Fair.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrates the history and contributions of Native Americans.
Government shutdowns can trigger painful economic consequences—and they only began happening in recent decades.
Ancient people may have been crafting an archetypal villain.
The president and Congress clashed over welfare, crime, defense spending and whether to fund Contras in Nicaragua.
President Harry Truman established the medal, which was then expanded to honor Americans for a wide range of service and achievements.
Horace Mann championed the common school movement to give all children an equal education.
Radar, computers, penicillin and more all came out of development during the Second World War.
Josephine Garis Cochran had no formal mechanical engineering education, but she designed, built, marketed and sold her dishwashing machine back in the 1880s.
A key ingredient in the flavor was discovered on ancient pottery shards in Indonesia, revealing it has been around for a long, looooong time.
'We pledge to never leave a fallen comrade behind,' says one of the survivors.
The concept of a third world war has been around for a long time—not as something that might happen, but something that <em>will</em>.
Some of the oldest known art may hint at the beginning of language development, while later examples portray narratives with human and animal figures.
Jackson said he should’ve hanged his vice president, Truman called Nixon 'a no-good lying bastard.'
The trial raised questions about the First Amendment and exposed a culture clash in America.
It took an influx of dam workers, exiled Los Angeles gambling operators and mob figures to build 'sin city.'
They offered Londoners music, spectacle and social escape.
The man who invented the Frisbee used to throw cake pans with his wife on the beach.
Newt Gingrich was offended that Clinton hadn't talked to him on Air Force One.
A priestess named Enheduanna claimed authorship to poetry and other texts—sometimes in first-person—more than a millennium before Homer.
More than fifty years later, people are still trying to match the bizarre accident that was Woodstock ‘69.
Social Security differed from other New Deal programs in that it wasn’t a short-term solution to the Great Depression. It was a long-term investment.
Barbie may be the star of the Mattel doll line, but she has had many friends along the way.
In 1929, Section 1325 criminalized undocumented immigration for the first time. Its aim was to decrease Mexican immigration.
Hollywood blacklisted these screenwriters, producers and directors for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Lotteries helped build libraries, roads and even Harvard.
State constitutions were rewritten to suppress the votes of newly enfranchised African Americans.
Some undid the work of their running mate, others bolstered their ticket.
The Hoover Dam, LaGuardia Airport and the Bay Bridge were all part of FDR's New Deal investment.
Gertrude Ederle slathered herself in grease, wore a controversial two-piece bathing suit and ate chicken legs along the way.
Our closest human relatives were shorter and stockier than us, and had no chin.
Long before it got its name, Gerrymandering was already happening in the United States.
In 1931, a Commission of crime families began running New York City rackets, initiating an era of colorful nicknames and violent power struggles.
Gambino family crime boss Frank Cali’s murder is the first Mafia don assassination in New York City since John Gotti had “Big Paul” Castellano killed in 1985.
In February 1959, nine hikers were killed while trekking in the Ural Mountains. The Soviet government originally attributed a “compelling natural force” as the cause.
In 1900, newspapers and politicians claimed the doctor trying to stop the plague had made the whole thing up.
Uncertainty still surrounds every aspect of the 1932 image.
