History

Odd corners of the past that the textbooks skipped. 53 stories, a few minutes each.

The Great Molasses FloodOn January 15, 1919, a storage tank in Boston's North End collapsed and released 2.3 million gallons of molasses in a wave that reached speeds of…
Why Carrots Are OrangeBefore the late 16th century, most carrots were purple, white, or yellow.
The Woman Who Sold the Eiffel TowerContrary to popular legend, Victor Lustig did not actually sell the Eiffel Tower. He sold the rights to scrap it, which in 1925 seemed like a…
The Dancing Plague of 1518In July 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea stepped into a narrow street in Strasbourg and began to dance. She did not stop.
TarrareIn the late 18th century, a French man with an insatiable appetite became one of history's strangest documented medical cases. Known only as…
Australia's Great Emu WarIn 1932, the Australian government deployed soldiers with machine guns against a population of emus. The emus won.
Phantom IslandsFor centuries, mapmakers drew islands that did not exist. These phantom islands appeared on charts and atlases, were copied from one generation to…
Tsutomu YamaguchiTsutomu Yamaguchi is the only person officially recognized by the Japanese government as having survived both atomic bombings. He was three…
The Exploding Whale of Florence, OregonOn November 9, 1970, a 45-foot sperm whale washed ashore near Florence, Oregon. The carcass weighed eight tons and was already decomposing. The…
The Voynich ManuscriptIn 1912, an antiquarian book dealer named Wilfrid Voynich purchased a strange medieval codex from a Jesuit college in Italy. No one could read it.…
The Great Stink of LondonIn the summer of 1858, the River Thames smelled so bad that Parliament considered relocating.
Tulip ManiaIn the winter of 1637, a single tulip bulb sold for 6,000 florins in the Netherlands—enough to buy a luxurious house on an Amsterdam canal. A few…
Why Barns Are Painted RedThe red barns scattered across the American countryside are not painted that color for aesthetic reasons. They are red because rust was cheap.
The Antikythera MechanismIn 1901, sponge divers exploring a shipwreck near the Greek island of Antikythera pulled up a corroded lump of bronze. For decades, it sat in a…
The London Beer Flood of 1814At around 5:30 in the afternoon on October 17, 1814, a wooden vat at Meux and Company's Horse Shoe Brewery ruptured and released a wave of porter…
The Winchester Mystery HouseSarah Winchester inherited a fortune built on rifles. Her husband William had been heir to the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, maker of "the gun…
How the Caesar Salad Was Invented in TijuanaThe Caesar salad is not named after the Roman emperor. It's named after Caesar Cardini, an Italian immigrant who ran a restaurant in Tijuana, and…
GiethoornIn the Dutch province of Overijssel, about ninety minutes from Amsterdam, there's a village where you can't drive a car. Not because it's…
Murphy's LawThere was a real Murphy. His name was Edward A. Murphy Jr., a captain in the U.S. Air Force, and the law that bears his name originated from a 1949…
How Champagne Was Invented by AccidentThe legend goes like this: Dom Pérignon, a Benedictine monk working in the cellars of the Abbey of Hautvillers in the late 1600s, accidentally…
The Mary CelesteOn December 4, 1872, the British ship Dei Gratia was sailing about 400 miles east of the Azores when her crew spotted another vessel drifting in…
The Collyer BrothersIn March 1947, the New York City Police Department received an anonymous tip that someone had died inside a decaying brownstone at 2078 Fifth…
The Year Without a SummerIn April 1815, Mount Tambora on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa erupted with a force roughly four times that of Krakatoa.
Ketchup Was Once Sold as MedicineBefore ketchup became a condiment, it was a patent medicine.
The Woman Who Fell 33,000 FeetOn January 26, 1972, JAT Yugoslav Airlines Flight 367 exploded at 33,330 feet over Czechoslovakia. A bomb planted in the forward cargo hold by…
The Dyatlov Pass IncidentIn February 1959, nine experienced hikers died under unexplained circumstances in the northern Ural Mountains of Russia. The group, led by…
Shakespeare Has No Living DescendantsWilliam Shakespeare had three children. Susanna, the eldest, was born in 1583. Twins Hamnet and Judith followed in 1585. By 1670, every direct line…
The Phantom Time HypothesisIn 1991, a German historian named Heribert Illig published a paper arguing that 297 years of human history never happened.
How Traffic Lights Were Invented Before CarsThe first traffic light was installed outside the Houses of Parliament in London on December 10, 1868—more than a decade before Karl Benz patented…
How the Guillotine Was Designed to Be HumaneBefore the French Revolution, the method of execution in France depended on social class. Nobles were beheaded by sword, a relatively quick death…
The Great Stork DerbyWhen Charles Vance Millar died in Toronto on October 31, 1929, his will contained a clause that would consume the city's attention for a decade.…
The Tanganyika Laughter EpidemicOn January 30, 1962, three girls at a boarding school in Kashasha, a village near the western shore of Lake Victoria in what was then Tanganyika,…
FordlandiaIn 1928, Henry Ford purchased 2.5 million acres of land along the Tapajós River in the Brazilian Amazon and built a town called Fordlandia. His…
The Kentucky Meat ShowerOn March 9, 1876, chunks of meat fell from a clear sky onto a strip of land near Rankin in Bath County, Kentucky. The area affected was roughly 100…
The Cobra EffectDuring British colonial rule in India, the government in Delhi grew concerned about the number of venomous cobras in the city. The administration…
The Paris CatacombsBeneath the streets of Paris lies a network of tunnels containing the remains of roughly six million people.
The Bridge That Soldiers Must Break Step OnOn April 12, 1831, a column of the 60th Rifle Corps marched across Broughton Suspension Bridge near Manchester, England.
The Day Sweden Switched Sides of the RoadOn September 3, 1967, at precisely 4:50 in the morning, every vehicle in Sweden stopped.
The Shortest War in HistoryOn August 27, 1896, the British Empire went to war with the Sultanate of Zanzibar. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, depending on the…
How Mauve Changed Fashion ForeverIn 1856, an eighteen-year-old chemistry student in London accidentally created the first synthetic dye while trying to synthesize quinine, a…
The Whistling Language of La GomeraOn the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands, people communicate across deep ravines by whistling. The language is called Silbo Gomero, and it…
The Inventor Killed by His Own InventionOn February 4, 1912, Franz Reichelt climbed to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower and jumped. He was wearing a combination overcoat-parachute…
Cher AmiIn October 1918, during the final weeks of World War I, a battalion of the U.S. 77th Infantry Division advanced into the Argonne Forest in…
Hedy LamarrHedy Lamarr was one of the biggest movie stars of the 1940s. She was also the co-inventor of a frequency-hopping communication system that laid the…
The Night WitchesDuring World War II, the Soviet Union formed three all-female air regiments. The most famous was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment, which the Germans…
Nellie BlyIn November 1889, a 25-year-old journalist named Nellie Bly left New York City with a single bag and the goal of traveling around the world faster…
The 1904 Olympic MarathonThe marathon at the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis is widely considered the most absurd sporting event in modern history. Of the 32 runners who…
How Chocolate Became a Candy BarFor about 3,000 years, chocolate was a drink.
The Invention of the ForkThe fork is one of the most common objects in the Western world, yet it took roughly a thousand years to catch on. For most of European history,…
The Hermitage CatsThe Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia, is one of the largest art museums in the world. It houses over three million items, including works…
The Real Robinson CrusoeIn September 1704, a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk asked to be put ashore on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific.
The Invention of the ZipperThe zipper took more than forty years and three inventors to get right, which is remarkable given how simple the finished product looks. Its…
The Woman Who Paid Kenya to Plant TreesIn 1977, Wangari Maathai planted seven trees in her backyard in Nairobi. It was World Environment Day, and the seedlings were the start of…