After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Onion stuck with satire

Coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks helped shape Wikipedia's editorial policies

Launched nine months earlier, the site was featured on Yahoo's news page, attracting traffic from information seekers as dozens of new editors created hundreds of articles, including memorials, conspiracy theories, and donation and volunteer pages. Discussions between editors would begin establishing rules for handling breaking news events.

On social media, satire is often mistaken for news

A 2018 study found that satire was often mistaken for legitimate fact, with stories from outlets like The Onion being shared widely without any understanding of their satirical intent. Likewise, the study found that media outlets often mislabeled satire as "fake news," a label that implies disinformation rather than social commentary.

Why cartoons are an ideal form for satire

For decades, TV shows like "The Simpsons" and "South Park" have satirized American culture and politics. Satire thrives on hyperbole, and cartoonists' ability to render the world in any way they choose allows for more elevated critiques.

Smithsonian artifacts that tell the story of 9/11 (w/photos)

Hundreds of objects linked to the attacks, from office supplies recovered at the World Trade Center to firefighters’ gear used at the Pentagon to fragments pulled from the crash site of Flight 93, reside in the national collection. Read about 31 Smithsonian artifacts that help unravel the complex story of 9/11 and its aftermath.

Kurt Vonnegut's satire embraced dark humor

Books like "Cat’s Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse Five" satirized the international appetite for war, which the 20th-century writer found both horrifying and hilarious. It’s a combination that some called “gallows humor,” a classification Vonnegut himself remembered Sigmund Freud describing. “One of the examples Freud gives is a man about to be hanged,” Vonnegut once recalled, “and the hangman says, ‘Do you have anything to say?’ The condemned man replies, ‘Not at this time.’”

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City’s Financial District in 2001, many banks decided to relocate

Much has been said about why today’s top banks are typically no longer headquartered on Wall Street itself. The terrorist attacks in New York City’s Financial District on Sept. 11, 2001, are one reason many banks decided to relocate.

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.

What 9/11 did to one family: the heartbreaking story of Bobby McIlvaine

Grief, conspiracy theories, and a family's search for meaning in the two decades since the attacks. On Sept. 11, 2001, Bobby McIlvaine was killed, along with nearly 3,000 other Americans. In the years since, his parents and brother have searched for...

A firsthand account from the AP photographer who captured 'The Falling Man'

On 9/11, AP photographer Richard Drew made one of the most indelible — and harrowing — images of the 21st century. Here's his account of the photo he captured.

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.

The most controversial moments in ‘Saturday Night Live’ history

This list ranks the show’s biggest controversies over five decades, including Sinead O’Connor’s infamous shredding of the Pope, Elvis Costello’s abrupt set change, and Fear trashing Studio 8H.

Comedic roasts, an ironic inversion of toasting, took off in the 20th century

Ribbing amongst friends likely goes back to the dawn of man, but formalizing the act caught on with fundraisers held by the Friar’s Club, a New York organization for theater agents. Rather than raising their glasses to good fortune and health, comics eviscerate an “honoree”—along with everyone else on stage—though they usually conclude with an earnest toast.

Stand-up became more popular during the Great Depression

The stock market crash of 1929 caused vaudeville theaters to shutter. Audiences were looking for lighthearted distractions from the country’s financial problems, though, and stand-up became more popular, albeit in very different venues.

NATO's Article 5 has been invoked once—after 9/11

The article was invoked the day after the attacks and launched a series of NATO campaigns to fight global terrorism. This page includes excerpts from a speech by then-NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about the attacks and the organization’s response.

How the New Yorker went from poker game to powerhouse

After 100 years in print, the New Yorker is still going strong, publishing weekly issues featuring the best in long-form journalism, cultural criticism, and short fiction. This history of the magazine's founding and early years shows how its balance of high and lowbrow culture, along with a fortuitous game of poker, led to its longstanding success.

Some companies like to make their IPO day antics unique

An article details some of the wildest bell-ringing day stunts in recent history, from Clifford the Big Red Dog ringing the opening bell to one company's employees roasting marshmallows in a campfire on Wall Street as it went public.

How Kurt Cobain's suicide changed the media

Public health experts feared that the suicide of a high-profile figure, especially for young people, would lead to a rise in suicides across the country. The opposite turned out to be true: Suicide rates decreased. Specialists suggest that's due to the way Cobain's death was covered, with news organizations largely avoiding glorification and including crisis hotline information.

Time magazine ran a cover story titled 'The End of the World as We Know it?' in January 1999

In January 1999, Time published a dramatic Y2K cover with apocalyptic imagery and dire headlines. The portrayal likely exacerbated public fear and magnified the crisis in the popular imagination, turning a technical issue into a cultural panic.

Gay Talese never fully accepted the title ‘New Journalism’

“I don't think it was new, and I don’t think it was journalism,” he said. He instead viewed what he and other writers were doing as defining reality using a storytelling technique. In other words, storytelling that wasn’t fiction.

'The Great Onion Corner:' Hear how short-selling onions ended with a ban on onion futures

In the early 1950s, onion farmer and produce trader Vince Kosuga cornered the onion market, resulting in a 1958 ban on onion futures from Congress. After stockpiling onions and buying onion futures, Kosuga then began shorting them. Then, he released his accumulated surplus of onions, driving the price down to essentially zero, and cashed in his short positions.

The White House correspondents' dinner has brought presidents and the press together for over a century

The annual dinner was started by White House journalists in 1921, and presidents have been attending since 1924. In recent years, the event has become known for its comedy, typically featuring a comedian who roasts the commander-in-chief.

Newspaper headlines from a century ago today

The Library of Congress' Chronicling America project is dedicated to providing access to information about historic newspapers, with the goal of digitizing these windows into the country's past. This (among other archives) lets you explore a number of different local papers' front pages from a century ago on today's date.

Dystopian narratives have influenced real-life extremists

J.M. Berger, a senior research fellow at Middlebury’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, traced how terrorist organizations have latched on to dystopian narratives, with some groups even embracing the texts’ lexicons and iconographies.

A gallery of New York cats alongside their feline reflections

Comedian Jim Tews began capturing photos of cats from the Big Apple in 2014 as a joke mimicking the highly popular site "Humans of New York," which captured random New Yorkers accompanied by their quotes. The site grew in popularity and Tews...

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles initially loved beer, not pizza

The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles self-published comic book was a parody of other, more popular comic book heroes, and was primarily aimed at adults. In those early issues, the Turtles drank beer. It wasn't until 1987, when the franchise was reworked as a children's cartoon, that they were given the more kid-friendly obsession with pizza.

The tragic Pulitzer Prize-winning image 'The Vulture and the Little Girl' (1993) generated controversy, raised concerns about ethics in photography, and eventually led to the photographer's death.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

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.

How the most famous Ebola book, The Hot Zone, which sold 3.5 million copies and was translated into 30 languages, got aspects of the disease so wrong.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

20,000 letters to the advice columnist 'Dear Abby' provide insight into prevailing sex, religion, and LGBTQ fears, anxieties, and concerns from the 1950s onward.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

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

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.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

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

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

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

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.