The 'maiden of maiden voyages' who taught the world how to fly

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.

That time two journalists raced around the world in 80 days

In 1889, Journalist Nellie Bly, née Elizabeth Jane Cochran, set sail on a journey around the world to compete with Phileas Fogg, the protagonist of the 1872 fiction novel "Around the World in Eighty Days." This short video explains how competing...

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."

Judith Resnik was the second American woman to fly in space

A PhD in electrical engineering, Judith "Judy" Resnik flew aboard Space Shuttle Discovery in 1984, becoming the second American woman in space, and later served as a mission specialist on Challenger's STS-51L mission.

The Wrights battled inventor Glenn Curtiss for market dominance, ultimately losing

Their 1903 flights were met with skepticism, and the pair were hesitant to conduct public demonstrations. By 1908, Curtiss developed his own airplane, successfully flying a mile in front of judges and winning the nation’s first pilot license. The Wrights sued for patent infringement, sparking a business war.

Who was Gudrid the Far-Traveled?

Considered one of the greatest female explorers of all time, Gudrid the Far-Traveled counted among her in-laws Erik the Red and Leif Erikson. Traveling from Medieval Europe to North America via Iceland and Greenland, Gudrid became the first European woman known to have given birth in North America. This article details the pioneering achievements of medieval Europe's greatest female explorer.

Francis Drake: favored English pirate who sailed around the world

Before becoming the global explorer that many know him as today, Sir Francis Drake was a pirate, merchant, and slave trader. This in-depth article dives into the life of Drake, who's commonly credited as the first person to circumnavigate the globe by ship successfully.

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.

'May your future be limited only by your dreams.'

- Teacher and astronaut Christa McAuliffe (1948-1986)

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.

Abigail Adams received no formal schooling, but educated herself through reading

Despite receiving no formal education—standard for women of her era—Adams became well-read, largely through self-directed reading and extensive correspondence with leading political thinkers of her time, such as Thomas Jefferson and Mercy Otis Warren.

View the 18 vehicles that broke the land speed record

The battery-powered "La Jamais Contente" was the first car to exceed 100 kilometers (62.1 miles) per hour, achieving the feat in 1899. By 1997, advancements in aerodynamic understanding and engineering led to the Thrust Supersonic Car, a jet-powered vehicle that reached a speed of 1,223.6 kilometers (760.3 miles) per hour.

At the age of seven, Grace Hopper dismantled alarm clocks

Foreshadowing a career in computers, Hopper exhibited a curiosity for gadgets at a young age and took apart seven clocks, determined to understand how they worked. Despite having a dollhouse, Hopper built an elevator for it and showed a greater interest in building toy furniture than playing with dolls.

An architect explores da Vinci's quest to fly

This article follows Leonardo da Vinci's quest for human air flight, which he pursued in the late 1400s. Written by an architect, this piece details da Vinci's venture into the field of aviation, starting with his attempt to understand the flight...

Soviet cosmonaut Yury Gagarin was the first human to journey into outer space

In 1961, aboard Vostok 1, the pilot orbited the Earth once for 108 minutes. On his return, he parachuted out of his capsule and landed in a field near present-day Space Conquerors Park, south of Moscow.

The Flying University was an illegal initiative to provide higher education to women

Restrictions from the Russian Empire on women's education drove Polish academics to set up illegal meetings where classes could operate in secret. Lecture locations constantly changed, keeping the university secret from Russian authorities for two decades.

Ashrita Furman, owner of over 600 world records

What does it take to break so many world records? Hardcore spiritual discipline, at least according to Ashrita Furman, who was trained by an ascetic teacher to do challenging things. Read up on his accomplishments in this photo essay.

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.

Aviation expert breaks down the safest seat on an airplane

The bottom line is air travel is very safe—much safer than road travel. But you can always up your chances. So, here's one expert's take on the safest seat on an airplane.

Jane Maas was one of the first prominent female ad executives on Madison Avenue

Jane Maas started as a copywriter at the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather in 1964. She’s known for working on the famous "I Heart NY" tourism campaign alongside artist Milton Glaser. This interview provides a glimpse into what life was like for women like her on Madison Avenue.

Who is the woman behind today's CPR doll?

According to a recent survey, about half of Americans know how to do CPR—many of whom learned on a mannequin called Rescue Annie. It turns out that this training doll may be based off a woman who became famous after drowning in the Seine, after...

Hear the story of Truth's life

This podcast traces Truth's life from slavery in New York to her status as an abolitionist icon—covering her daring escape, legal victories, landmark speeches, and lasting impact on racial equality and women's rights.

Modern Champagne owes much of its existence to one woman: Widow Clicquot

Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, better known as the Widow Clicquot, might not have actually invented Champagne, but her innovative approach to winemaking yielded many techniques still used today. Taking over her husband’s failing business after his death, the Widow Clicquot combined business savvy and innovative thinking to make the process easier, more efficient, and, most important, more profitable.

Kathrine Switzer was the first official female finisher in the Boston Marathon

A year after Bobbi Gibb’s unofficial finish, Kathrine Switzer registered under an androgynous name to avoid suspicion. Race officials unsuccessfully tried to remove her from the race while she was competing (pictured below), but she ultimately became the first woman to officially finish the race. In 1972, the Boston Marathon changed its rules to allow women to register.

The fatal allure of the Andrea Doria

The SS Andrea Doria was a luxury ocean liner that sank in 1956 after colliding with the Swedish passenger liner MS Stockholm. The sinking of the Andrea Doria was one of the most famous maritime disasters of the 20th century, and it resulted in the...

A film crew captured a 5-year-old Flannery O’Connor and her talented chicken

British Pathé, an international news program, ventured out to Georgia to film O’Connor (then known by her given name, Mary) and her chicken, whom she’d taught to walk backward. O’Connor would later joke that it was the highlight of her life.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

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

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

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.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

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.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

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

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.

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.

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

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

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

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.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.