The famous comet named for astronomer Edmond Halley only passes by the Earth roughly once every 76 years, but it’s appearances have often played a surprising role in historical events.
William Henry Harrison won a landslide victory in the presidential election in 1840, in part because of his reputation as the hero of 1811’s Battle of Tippecanoe.
Master escape artist Harry Houdini died on Halloween of 1926 from a ruptured appendix, but many of the circumstances surrounding his demise remain mysterious to this day.
For much of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a chess-playing automaton known as the “Turk” drew huge crowds at exhibitions across Europe and the United States.
For several decades in the 19th century, many of the world’s top astronomers believed that a hypothetical planet called “Vulcan” existed in our solar system.
With the election on the horizon, take a look at five famous instances where candidates proved the oddsmakers wrong.
Take a look back at six of the most infamous outbreaks of the disease once known as the “Great Mortality.”
