July 2, 1863 - Daybreak - The Union Army has established a strong defensive position resembling a fishhook along Cemetery Ridge. Against the advice of his second-in-command, James Longstreet, General Lee orders his men to attack the...

July 3, 1863 - 1PM - Confederate guns begin the largest artillery bombardment of the war against Union defenses. Determined to press the attack and despite protests from General Longstreet, Lee orders a massive infantry assault against...

Aviation pioneer, Amelia Earhart, wants to be the first woman to fly around the world. On June 1st, 1937, Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, board their Lockheed Electra and begin the 29,000-mile journey. On July 2nd, when they...

World War II - France - The German army flanks the British Expeditionary Force and the French 1st and 7th armies, separating them from the rest of the Allied forces. Despite a series of desperate counter-attacks, the Allies are unable to...

1930 - A new luxury cruiseliner hits the waters and begins escorting elite passengers from New York to Puerto Rico. Drafted as a military transport during World War II, she earns the name “Lucky Star” for never being struck by enemy...

1948 - The United States begins to send monkeys into space to test the biological effects. Albert I reaches sub-space, but does not survive. Albert the 2nd becomes the first monkey to make it into space, but dies after a parachute...

Following the defeat of the Axis powers, American, British and Soviet intelligence agencies work diligently to recruit German rocket scientists and acquire their knowledge and designs. The United States hires Wernher von Braun and his...

1964 - Malcolm X publicly announces his break from the Nation of Islam. Expressing his desire to work with other civil rights leaders, he meets with Martin Luther King as the U.S. Senate debates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He delivers...

Elizabeth Schuyler is born on August 9, 1757 in Albany to a wealthy Dutch family. A tomboy as a child, she grows into a strong-willed and impulsive woman and soon meets her future husband Alexander Hamilton. The two marry in less than a...

In the wake of the American Revolutionary war, Aaron Burr rises to power in the New York political arena. He reaches the apex of his career when Thomas Jefferson and Burr tie for the office of President. Behind the scenes, attempts to...

Within the annals of American history hides a resilient group of misunderstood vagabonds; the Hobo. Believed to have been coined in California around 1890, the term Hobo has many connotations, but no strict definition. A migrant worker,...

The ancient Aztecs believed that the souls of their ancestors went to a place called Mictlan. Protected by the goddess Mictecacihuatl, these souls would return to earth to visit their living relatives during a festival dedicated to her...

Different from Memorial Day, which honors all those who died in military service, Veterans Day honors all those that served in the United States Armed Services. 1918 - On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the armistice...

1941 - Tensions between Japan and the United States run hot as the Imperial Japanese Army invades China and French Indochina. The U.S. responds by sending support to the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek and imposes trade...

December 7, 1941 - Hawaii - Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa hears the code phrase “East wind, rain” on his short wave radio, signaling an attack on America. North of Oahu, Mitsuo Fuchida, Commander of the Imperial Japanese fleet, launches...

America’s private eye, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency avails itself to a wide berth of cases. Created in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton, the Chicago police detective and his agents-for-hire first gain national prominence chasing...

October 26, 1881 - Tombstone, Arizona - After a long night of drinking, Ike Clanton, member of a group of cattle rustlers known as the Cowboys, threatens to kill the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday. Lawmen Virgil and Morgan Earp arrest...

The 1st Congress of the newly established United States is hopelessly deadlocked on two critical issues. James Madison and the Southern states are pushing to move the seat of government from New York City to a location on the Potomac...

In the remote province of Judea, Jewish leaders are upset about Greek merchants sacrificing birds in front of their temple. The Roman governor ignores their complaints, so they stop offering prayers and sacrifices for Emperor Nero in the...

Born on June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa, Elon Musk becomes an entrepreneur at twelve years old after selling the code for a video game he created called Blastar. Bullied as a child, Musk escapes into the world of computers and...

Ring-a-round the rosie - A pocket full of posies - Ashes! Ashes! - We all fall down. Some believe that the popular rhyme dates back to the children who lived through the Black Death; the bubonic plague that decimated Europe in the 17th...

Pancho Villa is a national folk hero and an icon of the Mexican Revolution. At sixteen, he drops his birth name, Jose Doroteo Arango Arambula, after killing a man for threatening to sexually assault his sister. He escapes into the Sierra...

Jim Crow era Alabama is about to witness a brave act of obstruction. Fifteen years old and pregnant, Claudette Colvin denies her bus seat to a white woman and is subsequently arrested for her transgression. Sound familiar? Colvin’s...

Tadeusz Kościuszko leaves his native Poland to join the American Revolution. An accomplished military architect, he serves as a Colonel in the Continental Army under Major General Horatio Gates. When General John Burgoyne and his...