Three decades before the “War on Terror” and its orientation of “Islamic terrorism” as the principal threat to American security, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was its standing talisman. The color ...

Sonoma State Home for the Feebleminded Hospital, where sterilizations took place. Historical postcard, from the personal collection of Alex Wellerstein. In February 1930, Concepcion Ruiz, a ...

The Levi Leonard Papers, The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa. For Union Pacific executive Thomas Durant, it was a money-making machine. It was a revolutionary business model previously ...

When vaudeville impresario Martin Beck "discovered" a struggling Harry Houdini in 1899, it was Houdini's ability to escape from handcuffs which caught his attention. Although Houdini was hardly the ...

At the turn of the twentieth century, the idea of an organization that could represent all workers — and end major corporations' corruption and exploitation of labor — came to life. The man who would ...

When the Pill came on the market in 1960, it was enthusiastically embraced by the medical profession and the public. But by the end of the decade, after a crisis over the drug Thalidomide (which was ...

As the extent of the quiz show deception was revealed, the networks pulled all their high stakes game shows from the air, replacing them with westerns and detective shows. But the scandal affected far ...

Severe drought hits the Midwestern and Southern Plains. As the crops die, the “black blizzards” begin. Dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed land begins to blow. When Franklin Roosevelt takes ...

The fatal duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr shocked the nation. But it was the identity of the man killed, not the fact of the duel itself, that produced such dismay. By 1804, dueling had ...

In 1788, when John Adams returned from Europe to a hero's welcome, he came home to limitless possibilities. The presidency would belong to George Washignton, of course, but what office would suit ...

Rockefeller was overwhelmed. Unable to either give donations without investigating the worthiness of the cause or simply ignore the thousands of letters flooding his office, he felt trapped by his own ...

How the Gold Rush, Prohibition, and a 1990s news report helped define American wine consumption. Labeling bottles of wine in Sonoma County, California, in 1942. Russell Lee/Library of Congress For ...