A poignant account of what happened on Flight 93

The children of parents who died on 9/11 share their stories in remembrance

Many children of 9/11 victims were too young to remember their parents who died. They’ve grown up living with the tension between having a personal connection to the day but few, if any memories. Read some of their stories.

The 'Miracle on the Hudson' showed heroism in the air and changed social media forever

On Jan. 15, 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 lost both engines after hitting birds and was safely landed in the Hudson River. The event was a turning point for Twitter, as a photo and a tweet quickly spread—marking Twitter's rise as a real-time news source.

A writer's reflection on 'The Falling Man' - the man who fell from the World Trade Center

In an excerpt from his ‘Press Box’ interview with Bryan Curtis, writer Tom Junod discusses his Esquire story about the image of a man who fell or jumped from the North Tower on Sept. 11, 2001.

Watch Springsteen open a somber 9/11 tribute

“America: A Tribute to Heroes” was a fundraising telethon on Sept. 21, 2001, and simulcast across the four major networks. Springsteen opened the program with “My City of Ruins,” a song originally written about Asbury Park that took on new significance after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Veteran pilot guides 21-year-old pilot through emergency landing

Soothing words from Chris Yates helped guide Taylor Hash, 21, through an emergency landing after he learned she shared the same first name as his daughter.

'The Boy who Went to Heaven': A bestselling, but fabricated, story

In 2010, a book a boy’s experience of visiting heaven following a horrific car crash kicked off a surge of “heaven tourism” books. The account, however, turned out to be fabricated by his father, revealing a complicated mix of faith, greed, and a kid caught in the middle.

How do you survive a plane crash?

Almost 95% of plane crashes aren’t fatal. So what separates survivors from victims? One man’s story may hold the key, plus expert tips that could save your life.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

The usual rules of fate do not apply': Race car driver-turned-ace WWI fighter pilot survives being lost at sea

Eddie Rickenbacker had an amazing career as a World War I hero, fighter pilot, and race care driver, among other accomplishments. This restored footage of an short 12-minute documentary about his early life, war stories, and survival at sea for 24 days provides amazing insight on a truly American character.

Jeff Bezos’ adoptive father Mike Bezos immigrated to the US from Cuba at age 16

Mike Bezos’ mother made a coat out of cleaning rags for him before he immigrated, assuming that the United States would be very cold. Mike and Jeff told the story of Mike’s journey to the US and early days in America together in this video.

Hear the story of an Afghan refugee family's journey to America

Dori Samadzai Bonner recounts her family's escape from Soviet-occupied Afghanistan and their journey to find US refuge. This story reveals the challenges immigrants face in navigating the American immigration system and in seeking sanctuary.

A British Airways pilot mapped every flight of his career into a data art series

James Harding logged every flight he had flown in a software program and rendered the results into 3D globe animations, charts, graphs, and more. You can view the visualizations here, along with career stat breakdowns and a description of his project.

Stranger pays for a family's breakfast tab and writes heartfelt note praising the father of three kids

In Fort Worth, Texas, an Emergency Room doctor wearing scrubs was enjoying a meal with his wife and three children. While getting ready to pay, the family learned that their $85 bill had already been settled, with a kind note left behind. The message was signed by "a retired Army Medic" who thanks the man for being a good father.

'Burners' say their time spent at Burning Man changed their life

A first-hand account from habitual burner Theresa Christine gives insight into the unique festival offering endless art, entertainment, parties, and genuine interactions with strangers.

Famed historian David McCullough on five things to know about the Wrights

The bestselling author of popular, beloved histories on US presidents, engineering feats and disasters published a study of the Wrights in 2015. Here. he highlights five key facts to know about the brothers, including that their efforts were bootstrapped—meaning they paid for their work themselves with no outside investors.

The commander of the Japanese force at Pearl Harbor speaks on the Merv Griffin show

Mitsuo Fuchida, who led the first wave of the Pearl Harbor attack, converted to Christianity in 1950, after reading the testimony of a former American POW. He later traveled through Japan and the United States, sharing his story and working as a Christian evangelist.

Squanto was a tragic character in the original Thanksgiving story

Tisquantum (also known as Squanto) played a crucial role in the survival of the Pilgrims. As an English speaker, Squanto assisted the Pilgrims in gathering food and communicating with other Native peoples. However, his story also involved being sold into slavery by an English sea captain and returning home to find his tribe decimated by disease during the Great Dying. Tisquantum met his end not long after that first Thanksgiving, with historians speculating he died either by disease or assassination.

The ‘Bullshit Bombers’ of the Vietnam War and their mountain ghost

Armed with marketing insight and leaflets, these US soldiers tried to use propaganda to get the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese military to abandon their weapons and leave the war. But what’s more effective than a leaflet’s promise of a decent cup of coffee amid bombing? Ghostly threats from the great beyond. Learn more about weaponized superstition in this 42-minute podcast episode.

The story of the 1996 Women's Olympic Dream Team

The 1996 US Women’s Basketball Team went 60-0 on their gold medal run and is considered one of the greatest basketball teams ever assembled. The ESPN documentary “30 for 30: Dream On” examines the team’s 14-month journey, which changed the landscape of women’s sports. WNYC’s Alison Stewart interviews Director Kristen Lappas and Dream Team member Carla McGhee about their experience.

The FBI's most famous cases

From the D.B. Cooper plane hijacking to the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra Jr. to the details about the first FBI agent killed in the line of duty, this FBI archive overviews the agency's most famous cases. Cases are organized by investigative priorities, according to the agency. Clicking any of the linked investigations takes readers to detailed articles about the cases, some of which remain unsolved.

Beard sometimes downplayed his sexual orientation

Beard was a gay man living at a time when many gay people hid their orientation, fearing prejudice and violence. Considering that, Beard sometimes downplayed his identity in public, though he officially came out in 1981 in his memoir.

The commander of the Challenger mission began his career as a mechanic in the Air Force

Lt. Col. Dick Scobee began his career as an Air Force aircraft mechanic, later becoming a Vietnam combat pilot, test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base, and ultimately the commander of Challenger's STS-51L mission.

Spielberg improvised most of the iconic D-Day scene from 'Saving Private Ryan'

Although action sequences are often tightly choreographed, one of cinema's most famous war scenes was mostly shot on the fly. Spielberg wrote seven pages (or approximately seven minutes of screen time) for the scene, though the final cut of the sequence was 25 minutes long.

The story of the real-life 'Lord of the Flies'

William Golding's 1954 novel "Lord of the Flies" is about a group of schoolboys who crash land on a remote island and are forced to fend for themselves. It's a situation that ends in chaos and, at least according to generations of English teachers, reveals the cruelty lurking in all of us. But a real-life story eerily similar to Golding's novel suggests something very different.

Watch this behind-the-scenes interview about the first person ever diagnosed with autism

Two reporters from The Atlantic tell the story behind their effort to track down the first diagnosed autism patient, Donald Gray Triplett, in Forest, Mississippi, and how his life turned out decades later.

The inside story of the 1969 murder of coal union leader Jock Yablonski

In 1969, Jock Yablonski challenged the longtime president of the United Mine Workers, Tony Boyle. On New Year's Eve of that year, Yablonski, his wife, and their daughter were brutally murdered in their beds.

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Abraham Lincoln was almost assassinated weeks before his inauguration as he traveled from Illinois to DC through Baltimore in 1861; it took two independent claims for Lincoln to be convinced the threat was real

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

American short story writer Flannery O'Connor raised 40 peacocks, which became potent symbols for her fiction's elegant violence

After her fellow cult members tried to kill her with an LSD-infused hamburger, one member of the Manson Family, the murderous cult led by Charles Manson, decided to testify against the group's leader.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

The price of gas is a composite made up of several different factors, with the federal gas tax making up less than 20% of what drivers pay at the pump.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.