Christopher Klein

An unpaid bakery debt launched the 'Pastry War' between France and Mexico.

When Thomas Edison demonstrated the first practical incandescent light bulb on New Year’s Eve 1879, it marked the dawn of the electric age.

The South American hero went from liberator to dictator.

This 230-foot embroidery tells the story of the Norman Conquest.

Look back at the NFL’s strange first championship game, played indoors on a 60-yard field squeezed into a hockey rink.

The Pittsburgh Pirates' star—the first Latino Hall of Famer in baseball—was a hero for his charity work and social activism prior to his death in a 1972 plane crash.

China was a vital, but often forgotten, member of the Allies battling Japan—two years before the official start of World War II.

These classic works of literature ran afoul of government censors.

Widely acclaimed as the first movie star, Florence Lawrence was the first film actress whose name was used to promote her films.

Laura Ingalls Wilder had a secret collaborator with Libertarian Party connections.

At its height, the USSR comprised of more than a dozen republics stretching across Europe and Asia. After the collapse, each forged a different path.

Over her lifetime, the first Social Security recipient received nearly 1,000 times what she paid into the system.

Was it born from baseball or the boxing ring?

They were less religious refugees than economic migrants.

The magnate with humble roots claimed to be pro-union, but his actions didn’t match his rhetoric.

The Apollo program’s sixth human landing on the moon ended an epic chapter in space exploration.

While the advent of train travel altered previously held concepts of time and distance, learn about 10 railways and train journeys that also changed the course of history.

The cola wars' strangest twist birthed the 'Pepski generation.'

A little-known chamber concealed behind the head of Abraham Lincoln was intended to contain a shrine to America.

Orson Welles' 1938 program is the most famous—and dramatic—broadcast in radio history.

The sophisticated hoax fooled the Nazis and laid the groundwork for the Normandy invasion.

Explore nine surprising facts about the massive German airship and its fiery demise.

Approximately 700 miles of barbed wire, chain link, post-and-rail and wire mesh fencing has been erected along the border.

It wasn’t safe to go back in the water of the Jersey Shore in 1916, as a series of deadly shark attacks forever changed Americans’ attitudes toward the sea creatures.

Learn how the iconic children’s toy bearing the Great Emancipator’s name was born.

10 surprising facts about the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Look back at the 1925 life-or-death mission that inspired the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.

Abraham Lincoln was disappointed by most of his generals—but not Ulysses S. Grant.

Explore 10 things you may not know about the seat of the Catholic Church.

As the rich grew richer during the Gilded Age, the poor grew poorer, spurring the call for reforms.

Tennis Hall of Famers Dick Williams and Karl Behr survived the most famous shipwreck in history.

A Pennsylvania construction worker has discovered a mass grave thought to contain victims of the 1918 flu pandemic.

The Native American was an Olympic medalist, NFL standout and a MLB player — he even won a ballroom dancing championship.

A Canadian is to thank for one of America’s favorite pastimes.

A would-be assassin's bullet was slowed by Roosevelt's dense overcoat, steel-reinforced eyeglass case and hefty speech squeezed into his right jacket pocket.

The Founding Fathers passed the country’s first whistleblower protection law just seven months after signing the Declaration of Independence. The government even footed the legal bills.

It wasn't because of World War I.

An 1830 battle between steam and horse power marked the moment when the Industrial Revolution changed transportation forever.

The “Great Arctic Outbreak” of February 1899 set temperature and snowfall records from Michigan to Florida.

After being hit by a Japanese suicide plane, the crew of the USS Comfort were forced to tend to their own.

St. Patrick may be the patron saint of Ireland, but many St. Patrick’s Day traditions were born in the United States.

In the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the wild 1960 World Series, Bill Mazeroski of the underdog Pittsburgh Pirates toppled the mighty New York Yankees.

These Civil War veterans orchestrated one of the most audacious acts of the Fenian Brotherhood in the Americas.

In the 1990s, eight adventurers spent two years separated from the rest of the world inside a futuristic greenhouse meant to mimic a spaceship—on Earth.

Criminals operated with impunity along the northern border.

The notorious gangster was recruited as an FBI informant. It turned it out that corrupt FBI agents were the ones informing him.

During the 13 dry years of Prohibition, sneaky Americans went to great lengths to conceal their alcohol consumption from law enforcement.

His party expelled him. His cabinet resigned. He was even hung in effigy on the White House porch. What made America's 10th president such a political pariah?

Tens of thousands of Filipinos answered the call to fight in World War II when the Philippines was an American commonwealth.

When it opened in 1926, the St. Francis Dam was an engineering marvel. Just two years later, it became an engineering catastrophe.