Becky Little

During the Civil War, military hospitals considered opioids to be essential medicine. Doctors and nurses used opium and morphine to treat soldiers’ pain, stop internal bleeding and mitigate vomiting and diarrhea caused by infectious diseases. However, this led some soldiers to ...read more

Over two million soldiers enlisted in the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War. When it ended, the United States had many more veterans and surviving dependents than it had ever had before. In the decades that followed, military pensions became a major part of the federal budget, ...read more

Before the American Civil War, the majority of hospital nurses—or “stewards”—were men. But the war created a medical crisis that demanded more volunteers, and a lot of the people who took up the call were women. Of the estimated 620,000 military deaths during the Civil War, about ...read more

On August 16, 1858, Britain sent the United States an inaugural message via a transatlantic telegraph cable. In it, Queen Victoria congratulated President James Buchanan on their countries’ mutual success at building the very cable she was using to talk to him. Newspapers covered ...read more

“Insanity runs in my family; it practically gallops.” That’s what Cary Grant famously declares in the 1944 movie Arsenic and Old Lace, based on the hit Broadway play. The macabre comedy, set on Halloween, followed the discovery by Grant’s character that his aunts had secretly ...read more

The construction of the Statue of Liberty was a joint project between France and the United States. France was supposed to build the copper statue of a woman raising a torch, and the United States was supposed to build its pedestal. But for a while, it wasn’t clear if the statue ...read more

What does the oldest known art in the world tell us about the people who created it? Images painted, drawn or carved onto rocks and cave walls—which have been found across the globe—reflect one of humans’ earliest forms of communication, with possible connections to language ...read more

The Iron Age was the period in which the use of iron became widespread in Europe, Asia and parts of Africa. Because the adoption of iron didn’t happen at the same time in every part of the world, there isn’t really one Iron Age, but rather multiple ones across different regions. ...read more

Over a period of 15 years, from 1774 to 1789, the Continental Congress underwent a profound evolution. Starting out as a temporary group that met to address American colonists’ issues with British rule, it morphed into the de facto government of the 13 colonies, and ultimately ...read more

Of the three U.S. presidents who were impeached—Andrew Johnson, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump—none were ever convicted or removed from office. But when it comes to governors, the history of impeachment is quite different. There have been 15 governors in U.S. history who were ...read more

Chickenpox is a highly contagious disease caused by the varicella-zoster virus that leads to itchy skin eruptions, which are sometimes compared to a “dew drop on a rose petal.”  Until the development of a chickenpox vaccine in the late 20th century, the disease was a common ...read more

In the late 6th century B.C., the Greek city-state of Athens began to lay the foundations for a new kind of political system. This demokratia, as it became known, was a direct democracy that gave political power to free male Athenian citizens rather than a ruling aristocratic ...read more

In the colonial era, the most prestigious jobs were reserved for well-off white men, who secured appointments as colonial governors and military leaders. But there were many other types of jobs in Britain’s 13 American colonies. Benjamin Banneker, a free Black man born in ...read more

The filibuster, a method of delaying or halting the progress of a bill through prolonged speeches, developed in both chambers of the U.S. Congress in the 19th century. The U.S. House of Representatives got rid of the filibuster at the end of that century. But in the Senate, the ...read more

Many famous naval disasters happen far out at sea, but on January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia wrecked just off the coast of an Italian island in relatively shallow water. The avoidable disaster killed 32 people and seriously injured many others, and left investigators ...read more

Women’s gymnastics has been an official sport in the Summer Olympics since 1928, when the first female Olympic gymnasts competed in Amsterdam. Since then, it has become one of the most popular sports in the international games. Here’s a look at some of the sport’s most famous ...read more

When the United States entered World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt made it clear that he thought Major League Baseball should continue. But as thousands of minor league players and over 500 major league players—including Joe DiMaggio—left their teams to serve in the military, ...read more

Henry Ford revolutionized American manufacturing, bringing automobiles to the masses and creating a foundation for America’s middle class by pioneering liveable factory wages. But his broader social legacy is complicated. In addition to those accomplishments, Ford used his ...read more

When the United States started recruiting women for World War II factory jobs, there was a reluctance to call stay-at-home mothers with young children into the workforce. That changed when the government realized it needed more wartime laborers in its factories. To allow more ...read more

One of the most infamous World War II inventions is the atomic bomb. In August 1945, the United States launched its first (and so far, only) nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing an estimated 110,000 to 210,000 people. While the bomb stands out for its devastating ...read more

In March 1812, the Boston Gazette ran a political cartoon depicting “a new species of monster”: “The Gerry-mander.” The forked-tongue creature was shaped like a contorted Massachusetts voting district that the state’s Jeffersonian Republicans had drawn to benefit their own party. ...read more

On May 2, 2011, the United States military killed and buried Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader behind the 9/11 attacks. U.S. Special Operations troops took him out during a raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where he and some of his family were hiding out. After ...read more

The New Deal was a massive effort to lift the United States out of the Great Depression on several fronts. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s plan created the Social Security Administration to protect older Americans financially, and used the Agricultural Adjustment Act to help ...read more

In the fourth century, a Christian monk named Evagrius Ponticus wrote down what’s known as the “eight evil thoughts”: gluttony, lust, avarice, anger, sloth, sadness, vainglory and pride. Evagrius wasn’t writing for a general audience. As an ascetic monk in the Eastern Christian ...read more

In August 1929, Ladies Home Journal published an article titled “Everybody Ought to Be Rich.” In it, businessman John J. Raskob told Americans that if they invested $15 in the stock market every month, in 20 years they could have $80,000 (over $1 million today). Raskob insisted ...read more

In March 1942, an American codebreaker named Elizebeth Smith Friedman made a horrifying discovery: Nazi spies in Latin America had located a large Allied supply ship named the Queen Mary along the coast of Brazil, and German U-boats were planning to sink it. So intent was Adolf ...read more

Female inventors have played a large role in U.S. history, but haven’t always received credit for their work. Besides the fact that their contributions have sometimes been downplayed over overlooked, women—particularly women of color—have historically had fewer resources to apply ...read more

While the election of Kamala Harris to vice president is historic, she isn’t the first person of color to hold the position. The first was actually Charles Curtis, who took office nearly a century ago. READ MORE: 7 Firsts in US Presidential Election History Curtis was a member ...read more

In its over 200-year history, the U.S. Capitol has been the main location where the Senate and the House of Representatives pass the country’s laws and where presidents are inaugurated and deliver their annual State of the Union addresses. But while the Capitol was built to house ...read more

Widespread vaccination has helped decrease or virtually eliminate many dangerous and deadly diseases in the United States. Yet because vaccines have been so effective at removing threats, it’s sometimes difficult to appreciate just how significant they have been to public health. ...read more

James K. Polk, the 11th president of the United States, is probably best known for growing the the size of the country by more than one-third. This territorial expansion pushed the U.S. border all the way to the West Coast, precipitating a heated national debate about whether to ...read more

There’s a scene in Goldfinger, the third James Bond movie, where Bond lures Auric Goldfinger into a bet by wagering a bar of “lost” Nazi gold. It’s unclear if this is supposed to hint that Goldfinger has a Nazi past. In any case, Gert Fröbe, the German actor who played him did. ...read more

“The future must see the broadening of human rights throughout the world,” Eleanor Roosevelt told a crowd in September 1948 at the Sorbonne in Paris. “People who have glimpsed freedom will never be content until they have secured it for themselves… People who continue to be ...read more

The formal end of the apartheid government in South Africa was hard-won. It took decades of activism from both inside and outside the country, as well as international economic pressure, to end the regime that allowed the country’s white minority to subjugate its Black majority. ...read more

When the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met in 1787 to debate what form of government the United States should have, there were no contemporary democracies in Europe from which they could draw inspiration. The most democratic forms of government that any of the ...read more

Most modern presidential elections in the United States have a voter turnout rate of between 50 and 60 percent. Yet voter turnout rates have fluctuated throughout the country’s history based on who has the right to vote, whether people who have the right to vote are actually able ...read more

The Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s delivered a gut punch to the average American. By 1933, a quarter of Americans were out of work, the national average income had slumped to less than half of what it had been a few years earlier and more than one million ...read more

Throughout history, people have promoted stories of curses for a variety of reasons. To sports fans, curses can help explain their favorite team’s loss. When a cause of death is misunderstood, curses can provide an explanation. For an imperial nation, curses can betray anxiety ...read more

On the second day of the highly contested 1976 Republican National Convention, it was still far from clear which candidate the party delegates intended to choose: sitting president Gerald Ford or his challenger, former actor and California governor Ronald Reagan. Amidst this ...read more

“Witches Must Beware,” declared the Baltimore American on October 31, 1918. The Maryland city’s health commissioner had placed a ban on public Halloween events, instructing the police chief to prevent people from holding “carnivals and other forms of public celebrations.” The ...read more

The justices who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States hold a unique governing power, making their selection extremely fraught. Senators might oppose a nominee because of his or her record, or even because of disagreements senators have with the president who made the ...read more

Puns, rhymes and catchy phrases do remarkably well in United States presidential campaigns, even if they seem a little cheesy. After succeeding Warren G. Harding when he died in office, Calvin Coolidge won the 1926 election using the slogan “Keep Cool with Coolidge.” Dwight D. ...read more

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Lieutenant Colonel Paul “Ted” Anderson noticed that his colleagues at the Pentagon were gathered around a TV. When he walked over, he learned that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower in New York City. “I watched ...read more

U.S. presidential history is filled with “firsts.” First president? George Washington. First president to die in office? William Henry Harrison. First president to serve two non-consecutive terms? That would be Grover Cleveland, who won the 1884 election, lost the 1888 election, ...read more

George Washington didn’t have a nominating convention. As the commander of the colonial forces in the American Revolution, he was an easy candidate to select from among the eligible pool of any white man 35 and older, and he won his first two elections without any real ...read more

On July 27, 1919, a white man hurled rocks at 17-year-old Eugene Williams, a Black boy who’d drifted into an unofficially “white” section of a Chicago beach. Williams was floating on a raft and the pelting caused him to slip off and drown. When police refused to make an arrest, ...read more

Picking a vice president can be dicey. Although the presidential candidate is the main focus in an election, there’s a chance that a popular or particularly adept veep can help the ticket, just as a particularly unpopular or offensive candidate can hurt it. The selection is also ...read more

On March 13, 1990, over 1,000 people marched from the White House to the U.S. Capitol to demand that Congress pass the Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA. When they got there, about 60 of them cast aside their wheelchairs and other mobility aids and crawled up the Capitol ...read more