What do you know about WWI's only Black fighter pilot?

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.

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.

The Harlem Hellfighters, WWI's longest-serving US regiment

The nickname was given to the 369th Infantry Regiment, an all-Black fighting force of Americans attached to the French Army during World War I. The group fought for 191 days, longer than any other regiment in the United States Army, and lost more men (1,500) than any other.

What impact did WWI have on the US civil rights movement?

One of the great hypocrisies in American history involve the expectation of African-Americans to defend liberty in several wars while being deprived of it when they returned home to, as this article puts it "disfranchisement, segregation, debt peonage and racial violence." The writer reflects on World War I and how it affected the fight for civil rights in the USA.

A Navy messman with no gunnery training defended his ship at Pearl Harbor

Doris “Dorie” Miller, a Black Navy messman assigned to steward duties rather than a combat role, seized a .50-caliber machine gun aboard USS West Virginia during the attack. Despite no formal weapons training, he fired until out of ammo—becoming the first African American to earn the Navy Cross.

How a Harlem Renaissance poet teamed up with a Wright brother

Paul Laurence Dunbar is one of the most influential poets from the Harlem Renaissance, a loose collection of Black artists who redefined American literature in the early 20th century. He was also an entrepreneur. He founded a short-lived newspaper, the Dayton Tattler, alongside Orville Wright, one of the famous Wright Brothers who pioneered aviation. This article explores how their friendship defied the societal norms of the time and led to a pioneering publication.

Approximately 180,000 African Americans served in Union forces

About 180,000 Black soldiers—roughly 10% of the Union army—served in the United States Colored Troops after 1863. Despite lower pay and discrimination, they were crucial to the Union victory.

An Irish soldier recounts the horrors of fighting in World War I

Jack Campbell, who died in 1992, at age 97, served in the British army during World War I with four of his older brothers. Ireland's last "Old Contemptible," Campbell was gassed during the course of the war, and he shares this and other memories on Ireland's 'The Late Late Show' in this 11-minute video.

The 1910 Wright Model B was the brother’s most successful aircraft

The model, built from 1910 to 1914, was the first designed to be constructed in bulk, with four built each month in 1911 and 1912. The two-seater was used in exhibition flights and training for some of the earliest uses of airplanes in military contexts.

For years, Black players were tacitly banned from professional football leagues

In 1902, Charles Follis was the first Black player to play in a professional football game, and Black players were allowed in years after other leagues banned them. A "gentleman’s agreement” led to the league banning Black players in 1933, until four Black men reintegrated pro football in 1946.

Hughes wrote for and about everyday Black Americans

Early in his career, Hughes was often disregarded by prominent white literary critics and criticized by Black intellectuals for his sometimes negative portrayal of Black life. Hughes, though, was unconcerned, saying that he wrote for the “workers, roustabouts, and singers, and job hunters” of New York, Washington, Chicago, and other Black hubs.

​​Augusta Savage's sculptures emphasized realistic Black figures

The artist became known for her realistic busts of prominent Black figures, like WEB DuBois and Marcus Garvey, which emphasized their natural features, a stark contrast to stereotypical depictions of Black people in popular culture. Below is "Gamin," Savage's 1929 sculpture of her nephew.

The food took root with Black Americans in the Civil War era

Because the technique requires little equipment and can tenderize tough or undesirable cuts of meat like ribs, barbecue took root among impoverished Black Americans in the late 1800s. When these communities moved north during the Great Migration, barbecue followed.

Searching for a hate crime's unknown victim

In 2004, two federal agents heard a rumor: two white men, one under investigation for an unrelated crime, had gotten away with killing a Black man 15 years earlier as a requirement to join a white supremacist group. One of the men confessed to the crime, though he didn't know who was killed. This series dives into the search for the slain man and the justice he deserved.

The Night Witches

During World War II, one of the most effective Soviet bombing units flew wooden crop dusters that maxed out at 94 mph. They had no radios, no radar, and no parachutes. And the pilots? Young Soviet women, mostly in their teens and early twenties. The Germans called them Nachthexen—Night Witches. Shooting one down earned a Nazi soldier an Iron Cross, one of the highest military honors. However, for decades, most of the world forgot they existed. In this video, we trace how the Night Witches became one of the most feared units of WWII—and why their story nearly disappeared from history.

How black boxes made flying safe

Black boxes—which are actually orange—were not universally present in airplanes until roughly 1967, a process which grew out of frustration over frequent, unexplained crashes in the industry's first few decades. This piece tells the origins of...

How one Texas Western team changed college hoops

Texas Western, featuring college basketball's first all-Black starting five, stunned No. 1 Kentucky in 1966. Coach Don Haskins shrugged off the issue of race, but he received 40,000 pieces of hate mail after the game. This in-depth history relives the Miners' speed-driven triumph, their snub from Ed Sullivan, and a quiet revolution that sparked integration across the South's courts.

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

Wojtek the bear fought for Poland in World War II

Wojtek was a Syrian brown bear who eventually became a mascot, symbol, and eventually a soldier attached to the Polish II Corps during World War II. Learn about the amazing Wojtek, the Polish II Corps, and the incredible history of the Polish soldiers, many of whom had been imprisoned by the Germans or Soviets, who served during World War II.

How fighter jet ejections work

One of the most complex pieces of equipment in a fighter jet is the pilot's ejection apparatus, and the process of ejecting is far more challenging and violent than its depicted in film. This six-minute video breaks down the protocol step-by-step.

The real James Bond wasn't a spy—he was a birdwatcher

Ian Fleming needed a name for his spy protagonist and found it in a book about birds he was reading written by ornithologist James Bond. As Fleming's book series grew in popularity, the birdwatching Bond began to receive strange phone calls from fans looking for the fictional agent. This interview with writer Jim Wright explores that strange history, shedding light on more than a few Easter eggs in the Bond series.

Learn how Japan used the jet stream to launch attacks on US soil during World War II

In the final two years of the war, over 9,000 Fu-Go balloon bombs were launched from Japan, with about a thousand estimated to have reached North America. Six civilians killed by a Fu-Go bomb in Bly, Oregon, on May 5, 1945, became the only known deaths on American soil by enemy action during the war.

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

Challenger pilot Michael Smith was a Navy test pilot and Vietnam veteran

Michael J. Smith, a US Naval Academy graduate and combat pilot in Vietnam, flew nearly 4,900 hours across 28 aircraft types before becoming a Navy test pilot and NASA astronaut, serving as the pilot of Challenger's STS-51L mission.

Hear the story of Milton Washington, a stateless biracial Korean American

In a BBC "Lives Less Ordinary" podcast, Milton Washington recounts his early life as a stateless child in South Korea—born to a Korean mother and a Black US soldier—and his path to US citizenship.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. survived a near-fatal assassination attempt in 1958

In 1958, Dr. King was stabbed in the chest by a woman at a Harlem book signing. The blade lodged near his aorta, requiring emergency surgery to save his life.

Journal entries by a 10-year-old girl living through the Civil War

So much of war history is written by politicians, officers, and soldiers. Less often heard from are civilians who witnessed the effects and bigger events of a war. Carrie Mabry Berry was a 10-year-old girl who lived in Atlanta during the Civil War who kept a diary. In it she recorded events like General Sherman's shelling of Atlanta and more. This article provides a peek in Carrie's diary.

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.

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.

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.

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

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

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.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

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

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

Ebola species have historically been named after where they were discovered, stigmatizing residents who live there, including Bundibugyo, in Uganda.

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 identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

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

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

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.

During the French Revolution, a botanist's letter asking about "dear Rhus" (poison ivy) was intercepted, leading authorities to suspect he was conspiring with the Russians.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.