March 18, 2019

Sutter's saw mill where gold was found in 1848, precipitating the Californian Gold Rush. Engraving, 1853. Source: (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via...

March 13, 2019

Painting by Rembrandt Peale depicts a portrait of US Naval Officer Stephen Decatur (1779-1820), 1817. Source: (Photo by The New York Historical Society/Getty Images) An exceptio...

March 1, 2019

1839: The flag of the Republic of Texas, the 'Lone Star' state was admitted to the Union in 1845. Source: (Photo by MPI/Getty Images) Today, it seems strange to think that Texas could st...

January 20, 2019

The Westward Trail circa 1840: A map showing the westward trail from Missouri to Oregon. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images) In 1971, Minnesota Education Computing Consortium released a computer game ...

January 18, 2019

Orchids outside Audubon House & Tropical Gardens. Source: (Jeffrey Greenberg/UIG via Getty Images) The Victorian era, orchids were rare and elusive, but folks were smitten wit...

January 15, 2019

A windmill at dawn. Source: (Sharpshooters/VWPics/UIG via Getty Images) Forget Roswell and the UFO that reportedly crashed there in 1947. Fifty years earlie...

January 11, 2019

New York City had a big problem. France had gifted the United States with the Statue of Liberty to erect on an island in New York Harbor. It was a gracious gift and ...

January 2, 2019

When then-Secretary of State, William Henry Seward under President Andrew Jackson approached Congress for approval to purchase Alaska from the Russians in 1867, he met with ple...

December 10, 2018

Patrons walk among the canons and an American flag flown at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD on September 9, 2014, the 200th anniversary of the Star-Spangled Banner. (Photo by Lin...

November 20, 2018

In the early 19th century, peaking between 1810 and 1840, the science of phrenology was considered to be fact-based, cutting-edge science. Phrenology was the study and measurement o...

November 16, 2018

A scene from TV’s “Little House on the Prairie” was inspired by Minnie Freeman and the Children’s Blizzard of 1888. -- Photo by: NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images. The prairi...

October 11, 2018

The tongue-twister that none of us can say…did you know that it is more than just an impossible to pronounce sentence? The tongue-twister actually refers to a real pers...

October 5, 2018

Not the 1869 Rutgers’ football team, this is a group portrait of the Rutgers College 1891 football team, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1891. (Photo by FJ Higgins/U...

October 4, 2018

The Biltmore Estate, the largest privately owned home in America, built by George Vanderbilt between 1889 and 1895, is one of area's major tourist draws as viewed o...

September 17, 2018

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall shows off her charm bracelet while visiting Portugal on March 29, 2011. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images) One particular style of b...

September 14, 2018

(Photo by BSIP/UIG via Getty Images) Think our weather is wacky sometimes? It is nothing compared to 1816, also known as the Year Without a Summer in the Unite...

September 13, 2018

When you ask someone to think about the Old West and some of the key events that occurred during the days of cowboys, outlaws, and small-town sheriffs, one ev...

August 31, 2018

City dwellers walking past advertising signs for 'Orzone Olive Oil Emulsion, a delicious tonic beverage unequaled for chest and nerve troubles, sleeplessness and in...

August 30, 2018

When it comes to Old West heroines, one name often pops to mind – Annie Oakley. The eagle-eyed sharpshooting woman was so accomplished with her gun that she was invited to join Buf...

August 23, 2018

Most people don’t recognize the name Joseph Meister, but it is partially thanks to him that we have the rabies vaccination today. As a child, Meister was the first person to be ino...

August 22, 2018

Portrait of American author Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) against a green background and under an embossed presentation of his last name, probably taken from a cigar box, 1900. (Photo...

August 21, 2018

One of history’s most serendipitous moments occurred on September 13, 1862, as the Civil War raged. Two Union soldiers stumbled upon a piece of paper detailin...

August 1, 2018

Circa 1860: American author Louisa May Alcott (1832 - 1888). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Louisa May Alcott, the author of the beloved book, “Little Women...

July 24, 2018

Engraving depicting the Leonids meteor shower, which was associated with the comet Tempel-Tuttle, as seen over Niagara Falls in 1833. Dated 19th century. (Photo by: U...

July 19, 2018

A Thunderbird, mythical creator of Plain storms, swoops out of the sky, hurling lightning flashes at darting swallows on this graphic Pawnee ceremonial drum, USA. Plains Indian,...

July 17, 2018

Barbed wire on May 23, 2018 (Photo by Wassilios Aswestopoulos/NurPhoto via Getty Images) Nothing did more to change the way cattle ranching was done on America’s western fronti...

July 12, 2018

Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, The design may have been inspired by the Paris Sainte Chapel. (Photo by: Education Images/UIG via Getty Images) Back in...

July 10, 2018

New York City in the mid-1800s had a real problem. There were too many homeless and orphaned children living in the streets. By some estimates, up to 30,000 k...

July 6, 2018

Painting (by Julia Lemos) of people trying to escape burning buildings during the Great Chicago Fire, Chicago, Illinois, 1912. (Photo by Chicago History Muse...

July 4, 2018

When a 1820s fur trapper was accidentally shot in the stomach, his gunshot wound provided doctors with a window into the mysterious inner-workings of the human body…...

January 11, 2018

Check out some badass ladies of the Western world who used to walk around with tattoos on their bodies, long before it was cool.

January 3, 2018

Guillaume-Marie Pellerin had spent much of his life working the railroads. With 19 years of engineering experience behind him, the Express was in safe hands. As h...

January 3, 2018

James Wilson Marshall was the one who discovered gold flakes in the American River in the Sacramento, California, Valley in 1848. His discovery set off more than ...

December 7, 2017

Hyde Park's Pet Cemetery was started in 1881 by the gatekeeper at Victoria Lodge, a Mr Winbridge, who started burying dogs in the lodge's garden. The first dog to be buried was call...

December 7, 2017

A peculiar advertising photographic pictorial was devised during the 1870s, in which women in particular were hired by retailers to pose holding signs heralding businesses, their dresses...

November 27, 2017

Myrtle Corbin, was known as the Four-Legged Woman, however, technically, only one pair actually belonged to her. The other pair belonged to her dipygus twin sister. Born in Lin...

November 24, 2017

Villa Claire in Vevey, Switzerland, was Gustave Eiffel’s preferred place of rest when he wasn’t building giant iron towers or attempting to engineer the Panam...

November 23, 2017

In 1908, Lewis Hine became an investigator and photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC).The organization is dedicated to "promoting the rights, aware...

November 23, 2017

For nearly 200 years, the Fugate family of Kentucky remained largely sealed off from society as they passed their blue skin from one generation to the next. The B...

November 21, 2017

Six years ago, North Carolinian lawyer Frank Abrams unknowingly bought a rare photograph that experts believe shows Billy the Kid hanging out with the man who wou...

November 15, 2017

A French artist Frederic Duriez has color-enhanced some Native American portraits. Some of these photos are up to 120 years old and the color enhancement has certainly a...

November 10, 2017

In the early 1800s personal protection guns were all the rage, jut like the 2mm guns marked as Femme Fatal. Large enough to be worn on most any finger, the revolver had to be manua...

November 8, 2017

The home, fondly called Bon Haven by the locals, has been a landmark in Spartanburg since its construction in 1884. No one has lived here since 1995, when the la...

November 8, 2017

Hers was a classic and inspiring rags to riches story. One dotted with too many struggles and hardships, and failings and disappointments. But it's also a story...

October 30, 2017

These amazing real photo postcards provide us a peek of how the world was like 100 years ago. Aeron Express, open Sea View, Aberaeron, Wales, 1911 Boating on th...

October 9, 2017

Seven years ago, antiques collector Randy Guijarro laid his eyes upon a dusty old tintype photograph at a junk shop in Fresno, California. He bought the picture f...

October 3, 2017

During the celebration Queen Victoria's fiftieth anniversary on the throne, 50 kings and queens were invited. Two of the monarchs present were two Indian prince...

October 3, 2017

The first steamed engine accident happened in 1869 when Irish scientist Mary Ward fell off the seat of the experimental steam car she was driving as she rounded a curve on the road. ...

October 3, 2017

Beginning in the mid-1850s, at the orders of Napoleon III, Paris experienced a grand transformation - old, narrow streets made way for wider boulevards and thousands of gas la...

September 29, 2017

The phenomenon of hoarding has been around since ancient times. In the past, it could be dangerous, with some hoarders tragically found crushed to death by their ...

September 28, 2017

Between 1892 and 1954, about 12 million immigrants arrived at Ellis Island, often dressed in their finest clothes. The portraits below, taken between 1906 and 19...

September 27, 2017

A woman rides the “elevator of death” in Prague, also called Pater Noster which means “our father” since the elevators resemble a rosary…it’s a loop of open cabins and dates back to the ...

September 27, 2017

These photos below of rural life in Victorian England were taken by William Morris Grundy. After his death in 1859, the photo series was by the London Stereoscopi...

September 27, 2017

New York City needed to expand its water system, it needed a new dam - the Croton Dam - and with it, a new reservoir. Unfortunately for the town of Katonah, it st...

September 23, 2017

A full outfit for any well-to-do woman of the 19th century consisted mainly of four parts: the linen shift, the corset, petticoat(s), and a fine silk gown. On top of...

September 20, 2017

Claude Monet, a leading figure of the Impressionist movement, is also one of the best landscape painters the world has ever seen. Water lilies, colorful ponds, cl...

September 11, 2017

The ancient Japanese samurai seppuku tradition is considered as one of the grisliest and most painful ways to end one's life. The highly ritualized practice essentially...

August 20, 2017

Back in the 19th century, online dating wasn't a thing yet - no Tinder, no Match, no Craiglist - so people had to find other means to search for a mate. Apparentl...

August 18, 2017

August 18, 2017

Virginia Elisabetta Luisa Antonietta Teresa Maria Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, was a very significant figure in the early history of photography. She is remembered amo...

August 5, 2017

The largest hoard of gold coins ever found in the U.S. is comprised of 1,411 gold coins, worth an estimated $10 million in today's market, was found in February 2...

August 3, 2017

White Wolf a.k.a. Chief John Smith lived between 1785-1922 and is considered the oldest Native American to have ever lived. When asked the secret to good health, ...

August 2, 2017

This collection of 19th-century photos were taken during the American Civil War. They are photos of unknown soldiers who had chosen to be captured together with a...

July 31, 2017

According to experts at the National Library of Wales, the photograph below is the first ever recorded photo of person smiling. The photograph is simply labeled “...

July 29, 2017

Check out these early photos from 12 big cities from more than 100 years ago! It's remarkable how much things have changed. 1. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania A view of 8th and ...

July 11, 2017

Chlorambucil - Antileukemia Drug Chlorambucil is an anti-leukemia drug first approved by the FDA in 1957. It's origin go all the way back to the use of mustard ga...

July 10, 2017

The first documented instance where a person left their wealth to an animal happened in Russia during the 1800s. Maria Leontieva, a merchant from Uglish, stipulated that 100,000 rubles (a ...

July 7, 2017

From crazy cremation requests to creepy memorial guidelines, here are some weird and eccentric wills left by famous people in history. Napoleon Bonaparte: We all ...

July 4, 2017

You are on the outskirts of the town, you met country women on their way home to a farm several miles out. When they left home early morning those big, shiny copp...

July 2, 2017

The Old West, or the Wild West, is one of the most romanticized periods in American history. The period occurred when settlers and pioneers attempted to populate ...

July 2, 2017

By all accounts, famous writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and his wife, Edith, had a close and happy marriage. They were married for 55 years, with Edith following...

June 30, 2017

The story of the Ideal Palace began in 1879. One day, while walking his mail route, French mail carrier Ferdinand Cheval was distracted by a strange-shaped stone ...

June 27, 2017

Edgar Allan Poe, died under mysterious circumstances on October 7th of 1849 when he was only 40 years old. He was a very prolific author; he left behind a legac...

June 21, 2017

The story of Peter Pan, the boy who wouldn’t grow up, has become a quintessential part of popular culture; it is an enduring element of every childhood. Scottish ...

June 14, 2017

James Buchanan was the 15th President of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. His presidency was considered by many historians a failure since his effort...

June 14, 2017

The Nine Mile Canyon in the Utah desert, Western United States, is known as “the world’s longest art gallery” because it is filled with thousands of petroglyphs...

June 13, 2017

In the 17th and 18th century the church banned women singers from performing in church music or on stage. This led to the castration of boys as a way to keep the...

June 12, 2017

In 1895, American photographer Edward S Curtis took his first portrait of a Native American subject - a wrinkled elderly woman with a red handkerchief; he paid he...

June 6, 2017

The hydro-electric belt first appeared at the World’s Fair in London in 1851. It was comprised of several batteries and electrodes and was used to “cure” everything ...

June 3, 2017

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles L. Dodgson, author of the children's classics Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. Besides wr...