Laura Schumm

And how did he become the unofficial mascot of Valentine's Day?

The well-known story that Ross sewed the country's first flag at the behest of George Washington may be apocryphal.

Explore a few little-known facts about this wildly popular seer.

The beloved chocolate candies have been to war and space and back again—and for more than 10 years the red ones went missing in action.

During both World Wars, America's agricultural production became a powerful military tool.

World War I Following nearly three years of intense combat since the onset of World War I, America’s allies in Europe were facing starvation. Farms had either been transformed into battlefields or had been left to languish as agricultural workers were forced into warfare, and disruptions in transportation made the distribution of imported food extremely […]

The series of intermittent conflicts between France and England that took place during the 14th and 15th centuries wasn’t classified as the “Hundred Years’ War” until 1823. Traditionally, the war is said to have begun in 1337 when Philip VI attempted to reclaim Guyenne (part of the region of Aquitaine in southwestern France) from King […]

This controversial top-secret U.S. intelligence program brought Nazi German scientists to America to harness their brain power for Cold War initiatives.

Even before Oregon Country—the disputed area claimed in the early 1800s by both Great Britain and the United States—was officially claimed by Congress as a United States territory in 1846, pioneers had been traveling west to explore its bounty. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had arrived at the Pacific Ocean in 1805, but the route […]

In the latter half of the 19th century, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, was an area rife with violence. Between 1861 and 1875, a series of violent assaults, arsons and murders was blamed on a secret society of Irish immigrants known as the Molly Maguires. The group had originally emerged in north-central Ireland in the 1840s as […]

Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, third president of the United States, appropriator of the Louisiana Purchase, gastronome…?

Shortly after the Revolutionary War broke out in April of 1775, Benedict Arnold set out as captain of the Connecticut Militia Company to join the Continental Army in Massachusetts. Together with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga in New York from the British and, later, led a grueling expedition to […]

If you’ve ever had a career in the arts, or know someone who has, you are likely aware that saying the word “Macbeth” inside a theatre is strictly taboo unless one is rehearsing or in the midst of performing Shakespeare’s dark tragedy. Doing so is almost universally believed to bring about bad luck or even […]

Although elevators may seem like a modern invention, devices used to transport people or goods vertically have been around for thousands of years. According to the writings of Vitruvius, the Greek mathematician Archimedes created a primitive elevator in 236 B.C. that was operated by hoisting ropes wound around a drum and rotated by manpower applied […]

The first writing system is believed to have developed during the second millennium B.C.

If you’ve ever visited the Old Granary Burying Ground in Boston, Massachusetts, you may have stumbled upon the tombstone of Mary Goose, a woman believed by some to be the infamous author of countless cherished nursery rhymes: Mother Goose. Visitors toss coins at her tombstone, presumably to garner a bit of good luck, but the […]