The US Army massacred close to 300 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee in 1890

The Standing Rock Sioux led a nationwide protest movement against an oil pipeline crossing their land

Beginning in 2016, thousands gathered at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation to block a crude oil pipeline that would run beneath Lake Oahe, the tribe's source of drinking water, and through a Sioux burial ground. The Obama administration halted construction, but Trump revived it weeks after taking office.

The Trail of Tears killed thousands of Native Americans forced from their homelands

After the Indian Removal Act passed, the US Army marched the Cherokee and other nations hundreds of miles to the designated "Indian Territory" in present-day Oklahoma. Thousands died from starvation and disease along the way.

A tense standoff with the Teton Sioux nearly ended the expedition

In 1804, the Teton Sioux seized a Corps of Discovery boat during a Missouri River meeting, sparking a dangerous standoff. The conflict eased only after careful diplomacy.

US troops committed widespread atrocities during the Mexican-American War

American volunteer regiments frequently looted towns, raped civilians, and executed prisoners—especially in occupied northern Mexico. Historians have documented how racial hatred and impunity fueled war crimes that were rarely punished by military leadership.

The Dawes Act of 1887 broke up communally held tribal lands

Sometimes called the General Allotment Act, the Dawes Act divided reservation land into individual plots assigned to Native Americans, while "surplus" land was sold to white settlers. The policy led to Native tribes losing roughly 90 million acres, about two-thirds of their remaining land.

European diseases killed a massive share of the Native American population

After Western contact, epidemic diseases devastated Indigenous communities. By 1920, the Native American population of the US had fallen to roughly 270,000, compared with an estimated 1.2 to 18 million at the time of European arrival.

The Kent State massacre sparked a nationwide student strike

In 1970, the Ohio National Guard opened fire on Kent State University students—peacefully protesting the Vietnam War—and killed four. The tragedy led to more widespread nationwide protests, shutting down more than 200 colleges and universities. The event led to a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a slain and grieving student.

Native religious practices were suppressed for centuries before receiving federal protection in 1978

During the first two centuries of American history, the government frequently banned Native ceremonial dances, took sacred sites, and enrolled children in boarding schools where they were prevented from practicing their faith. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 committed the federal government to safeguarding Native spiritual practices.

Indigenous women are murdered at 10 times the rate of all other ethnicities in the US

Murder is the third-leading cause of death among Indigenous women, who are also 2.5 times more likely to experience violence than any other group. More than 4 in 5 Indigenous women have experienced violence in their lifetime.

Marlon Brando used his 1973 Oscar win to protest the US government's treatment of Native Americans

Brando declined his best actor award at the Academy Awards, sending Chiricahua Apache activist Sacheen Littlefeather in his place to read a statement protesting Hollywood's depiction of Native people and the federal siege underway at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

Two-thirds of soldier deaths during the war were due to disease

Roughly two-thirds of all Civil War deaths resulted from disease rather than battle. Poor sanitation, contaminated water, and limited medical knowledge made camps breeding grounds for dysentery, typhoid, and other deadly infections.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act sparked violence that foreshadowed the Civil War

The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act let settlers vote on whether to allow slavery, repealing the Missouri Compromise. Competing proslavery and antislavery groups poured into Kansas, sparking years of bloody conflict known as "Bleeding Kansas."

Montana's Fort Shaw Indian Boarding School was home to a world champion girls' basketball team

In 1904, the school, featuring players from multiple tribes in Montana and Idaho, won the championship at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (also known as the St. Louis World Fair).

Native Americans developed pottery and religion, and experienced population growth during the Woodland period

Between 500 B.C.E. and 1100 C.E., Indigenous peoples produced pottery and practiced animism, a spiritual worldview in which animals, plants, and natural forces are believed to possess sacred power. They moved seasonally to make the most of available resources.

Taliesin’s first fire also involved the tragic murder of seven people

In 1914, while Frank Lloyd Wright was out working in Chicago, one of his servants at Taliesin brutally murdered his mistress, Martha “Mamah” Borthwick Cheney, her two children, and three other people in the home. The massacre left a deep impression on Wright, who spent much of his career restoring the home.

The US sent an iconic photographer to document the Japanese-American internment

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, 120,000 Japanese-Americans were removed from their homes and businesses and sent to internment camps across the American West and Arkansas. This nearly 15-minute video explores how the US government sent famed photographer Dorothea Lange to document the transfer and internment, only to restrict or impound many of her photos when they seemed less than positive.

The UN’s 1990s peacekeeping mission in Rwanda failed to prevent a genocide

During a 100-day period in 1994, nearly 1 million Tutsi and moderate Hutu civilians were murdered, a tragedy that exemplified the limitations of the UN’s ability to protect populations from mass killing.

11 people died from firework injuries in the US in 2024

Most of those deaths involved misuse of the explosives and device malfunctions or misfires. That fatality count doesn't include the almost 15,000 people who received treatment in the emergency room due to firework-related injuries. More than a third of all the injuries in 2024 were burns, underscoring the risks of using these explosive devices.

Read the only surviving eyewitness account of the first Thanksgiving

Edward Winslow’s short 1621 letter offers the only firsthand account of the first Thanksgiving, describing celebratory gunfire that drew Wampanoag leader Massasoit and 90 men—initially fearing conflict—before the gathering turned into shared feasting.

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

11 people died from firework injuries in the US in 2024.

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.

One of the earliest Memorial Day ceremonies was held by newly freed Black Americans in South Carolina

On May 1, 1865, roughly 10,000 people, mostly freed slaves, paraded around a Charleston racetrack where Union prisoners had been buried, predating the first national commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery by three years.

Human sacrifice in the Inca Empire

In the lands ruled by the Incas, mountain deities were well-respected and related summits were often selected as places for making the most important of all offerings — human sacrifices.

Abraham Lincoln's missing bodyguard

The night President Abraham Lincoln was shot, his bodyguard John Frederick Parker was late for his shift—and reportedly left his post to drink at the bar. Infamous assassin John Wilkes Booth entered the booth at Ford's Theater where the president sat while Parker was absent, leading to one of the United States' greatest political tragedies. Read more about the troubled history of Parker here.

The day the dinosaurs died

Roughly 66 million years ago, a giant meteor struck Earth off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Some dinosaurs died in the immediate impact, which sent a 200-foot tsunami all the way up to what is now North Dakota. Many others perished in the resulting change in climate, with debris ejected into the global atmosphere. This 12-minute video provides an overview of what scientists have uncovered about the fateful day.

O’Keeffe collected animal skulls and bones for her art

O’Keeffe used bones as motifs in her work throughout her time in New Mexico. She famously stated, “The bones do not symbolize death to me. They are shapes that I enjoy … They're very lively.”

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

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.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

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.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

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

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.

Exploring the Larry Bird punch that almost changed March Madness

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.

Cultural norms about how to handle the bodies of loved ones in communities in West Africa have hampered Ebola responses.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

In 2019, a laptop loaded with six of the worst malware in history and described as 'an exhibit of historical weaponry' sold for $1.3M.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in terms of casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

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.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

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.'

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

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