Roosevelt left a White House dinner to fly over Washington with Amelia Earhart

Eleanor Roosevelt's 1941 flight with a Black pilot helped legitimize the Tuskegee Airmen program

During a 1941 visit to the Tuskegee Institute, Roosevelt ignored protests from her Secret Service detail and flew for an hour over Alabama with chief instructor Charles Alfred Anderson. Photos of the flight were shared nationwide and helped advance the case for Black pilots in combat.

Roosevelt transformed the role of the first lady of the United States

Eleanor Roosevelt diverged from the traditional expectations of the role—holding her own press conferences, writing a daily column, traveling the country on her own schedule, and taking public stances on controversial political issues. Many subsequent first ladies have modeled their use of the position after her example.

Roosevelt resigned from a prominent women's organization after it barred a Black singer from performing

When the Daughters of the American Revolution refused to allow Marian Anderson to perform at their Washington hall in 1939 because she was Black, Roosevelt publicly cut ties with the group. She worked to arrange an alternative outdoor concert for Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial, which drew a crowd of 75,000.

Many historians believe Eleanor Roosevelt had a romantic relationship with Lorena Hickok, a female journalist

Roosevelt and AP reporter Lorena Hickok exchanged over 3,000 deeply affectionate letters, many written twice daily. Hickok lived in a room near Eleanor's in the White House for several years. Biographers who have examined their correspondence conclude it was a true-love relationship.

The FBI surveilled Roosevelt for decades, suspicious of her civil rights and political work

J. Edgar Hoover's FBI maintained a large file on Eleanor Roosevelt, monitoring her involvement with civil rights groups, connections to progressive causes, and vocal opposition to McCarthyism. Although a formal investigation was never initiated, Hoover regarded her as a person of interest for most of her adult life.

Eleanor Roosevelt sheltered student activists at the White House after they were subpoenaed by HUAC

In 1939, when Congress subpoenaed leaders of the American Youth Congress on suspicion of communist ties, Eleanor Roosevelt attended the hearings herself and then invited all 10 students to stay at the White House, as they had nowhere to sleep.

President Theodore Roosevelt walked Eleanor Roosevelt down the aisle at her wedding to Franklin D. Roosevelt

Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt, her fifth cousin once removed, were married on St. Patrick's Day in 1905. Because both of her parents had died, her uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, accompanied her down the aisle. The wedding was a notable social event among NYC elites.

Hear Eleanor Roosevelt speak about human rights

On International Human Rights Day, Roosevelt addressed a TV audience to explain the importance of the Declaration of Human Rights. She discusses her work and plans to spread information about the United Nations' efforts.

1928: A quote from Amelia Earhart

"Ours is the commencement of a flying age, and I am happy to have popped into existence at a period so interesting."

Eleanor Roosevelt was orphaned by age 10

Roosevelt's mother died when Eleanor was 8, and her father died two years later. Orphaned before she turned 10, Eleanor moved in with her maternal grandmother in New York and was raised by the emotionally distant woman.

The attack at Pearl Harbor led to the world's first around-the-world commercial flight

A World War II-era commercial flight was forced to change course when Pearl Harbor was bombed, leading the 12-member crew on the world's first commercial flight to circumnavigate the globe. The Boeing 314 crossed the equator four times during the journey, which totaled more than 30,000 miles and required the crew to strip the plane of any identifying marks.

The story of the first British royal visit to the US in 1939

Amid pre-World War II diplomatic efforts in June 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I (not her better-known daughter, Elizabeth II) became the first reigning British monarchs to visit the US—163 years after the colonies declared independence from Great Britain. The five-day meeting began with two formal days in Washington, DC, before concluding at FDR's estate in Hyde Park, where the monarchs reportedly enjoyed hot dogs for the first time.

The Oval Office was completed in 1909

Completed during William Howard Taft's presidency, the Oval Office was designed as part of an expansion of the West Wing. President Franklin D. Roosevelt redesigned the room and moved it to the southeast corner of the West Wing in 1934.

Abigail Adams sailed to Europe to join John during his diplomatic posting in Paris in 1784

This podcast chronicles Abigail's voyage across the Atlantic to join John in Paris during his diplomatic service, then follows the couple's return to America and their rise to the White House.

Go inside Air Force One

Air Force One is the official aircraft used to transport the US president, serving as both a mobile office and command center. Over the decades, its technology, security, and symbolism have evolved—from Roosevelt's early prop planes to today's highly advanced Boeing jets.

Jacqueline Kennedy's 1962 White House tour drew 80 million viewers worldwide

Broadcast simultaneously on CBS and NBC, and a few days later on ABC, the first lady's televised tour introduced the restored White House to an audience of between 50 million and 80 million. The program elevated public appreciation of American history and the significance of the White House.

How two US Presidents defined WWII and its aftermath

The National WWII Museum’s “To the Best of My Ability” podcast series delves into how Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman steered the US through World War Two.

American Express stopped its rail service when President Wilson seized American railroads

After the US entered World War I, the federal government took control of American railways and consolidated rail companies. American Express officially exited the express shipping business in 1918 and turned its focus to its travel and financial services.

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.

See shots of the Wright Flyer intact at the National Air and Space Museum

Since the museum’s opening in 1976, the wood-and-muslin plane has been available for public viewing with a model of Orville, the younger brother, lying on the plane’s mid-section.

Kitty Hawk’s wide space, isolation and winds were ideal for flight experiments

North Carolina’s Outer Banks at the turn of the 20th century were not the summer resort destinations they are today. The brothers sought privacy as they toyed with their aviation designs, camping in Kill Devil Hills and using its sand dunes as launch points for early glider designs.

Radio quiz shows took off in the '40s

The concept took hold during the Great Depression, with 50 shows on the air by 1940, because they allowed families to imagine a financial windfall was just a few questions away. Although the genre had a slight downturn during World War II, it experienced a resurgence by the end of the decade, with 200 shows on the air.

Sheep once grazed on the National Mall and White House grounds

In the late 1910s, sheep grazed near the Lincoln Memorial and on the White House lawn. Under Woodrow Wilson, their wool was auctioned for charity, briefly making the grazing animals the subject of a federal cost-saving experiment.

In 1939, an industry group asked Franklin Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving

Specifically, the Retail Dry Goods Association warned Franklin Roosevelt that if the holiday season didn’t begin until after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving on the traditional final Thursday in November, retail sales would tank. In 1941 Congress passed a law that made Thanksgiving the fourth rather than the last Thursday in November.

Marie Curie pioneered radioactivity research, for which she won two Nobel Prizes

Marie Curie and her husband isolated polonium and radium despite poor lab conditions and financial hardship. President Harding, on behalf of the women of America, presented her with one gram of radium in 1921 in recognition of her service to science.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

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

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

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.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

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

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.

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

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

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

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.