For four straight years, Union and Confederate soldiers battled during the bloodiest war in American history. Both sides suffered unprecedented casualties, and the severe lack of infrastructure made ...

The Park Avenue Crash, 1902. Courtesy: The Railroad Enthusiasts of New York at The Williamson Library On January 8, 1902, an express train from White Plains missed signals and plowed into the back of ...

The Ku Klux Klan was organized after the Civil War by a small group of men aiming to form a brotherhood during the time of Reconstruction in the 1860s. Throughout American history, the organization ...

Mark Twain chronicled his experiences living and working out West in his book Roughing It, published in 1872. In this excerpt from the book's fourth chapter, Twain describes his 1861 journey by ...

At the time Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe met, their careers were on different trajectories. DiMaggio’s star was fading; Monroe’s was rising. Joe was done with baseball, and Marilyn had no interest ...

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, also known as Mohammad Reza Shah, the last Shah of Iran, courted a very close relationship with the United States and its leaders for almost three decades. The American Central ...

The Delta plantation system started in the 19th century when white farmers went there in search of fertile farmland, escaping declining productivity in other Southern states. They brought with them ...

The book debuted to instant acclaim, and was soon adapted for the screen and stage. But that didn’t insulate it from censorship challenges; in fact, Of Mice and Men is amongst the most challenged ...

In August 1852, the Alta California exposed a brewing court battle. San Francisco's most renowned Chinese madam planned to sue a notorious Chinese leader for extortion. The beautiful Miss Ah Toy ...

In their book, In Love and War,Vice Admiral Jim Stockdale and his wife Sybil wrote about their lives during the eight years Jim was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Below are excerpts from Sybil's ...

Joseph Kennedy Sr., starting from a solidly middle class family in Boston, created a fortune that gave his children and grandchildren the freedom to pursue public service. Kennedy’s business ventures ...

Yellow fever appeared in the U.S. in the late 17th century. The deadly virus continued to strike cities, mostly eastern seaports and Gulf Coast cities, for the next two hundred years, killing hundreds ...