Take a tour of Mark Twain's Connecticut mansion

Twain grew up in Missouri near the Mississippi River

When Twain (then known as Samuel Clemens) was 4 years old, his family moved to Hannibal, Missouri, a port town along the Mississippi River. Hannibal would eventually be the setting for two of his most famous works: “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”

Thomas Edison captured the only known footage of Mark Twain

The inventor was a pioneer in the early film industry and made his own motion pictures. In 1909, he shot a short film featuring Twain at Stormfield, his property in Connecticut. In it, Twain wears his iconic white suit and drinks tea with his daughters.

Read the works of Mark Twain

Twain's books are in the public domain, meaning they can be freely distributed. Digital versions of his classic novels—including "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court"—as well as many of his short stories and satirical essays can be accessed through Project Gutenberg.

One actor made a career out of playing Mark Twain

Hal Holbrook toured in the one-man show “Mark Twain Tonight!” for over six decades. In the performances, Holbrook wore Twain’s iconic white suit and offered witticisms similar to Twain’s famous lectures. Holbrook won a Tony Award in 1966 for a Broadway run of the show.

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

Mark Twain had many gripes with the US Postal Service

Twain often complained about the cost of postage and the service's inefficiencies, often sharing these criticisms in newspaper opinion pieces. Still, in 1907, the USPS issued a commemorative stamp featuring his face.

Take a tour of Charles Dickens' London

Much of Dickens' fiction concerns Victorian London and its people. This tour of the city, led by Dickens biographer Simon Callow, walks you through significant sites, like the place where Dickens' parents were married, the shoe-blacking factory where he worked as a boy, and the place where he created his first magazine.

Twain didn’t start wearing his iconic white suit until later in life

The writer first wore the white suit in 1906, at the Library of Congress. “I have reached the age where dark clothes have a depressing effect on me,” Twain told the Washington Post. “I prefer light clothing, colors, like those worn by the ladies at the opera.”

15,000 people from over 20 nations lived in these Lower East Side tenements

The Tenement Museum recreated authentic immigrant homes using artifacts from historic buildings that housed diverse communities between 1863 and 2011. Take a digital tour that explores the immigrant experience through carefully preserved living spaces and belongings.

Take a virtual tour of a Usonian home

Wright's Usonian homes might have been more economical, but they didn't lack any of the inventive design of his other projects. That's evident throughout this tour of one of the homes in Pleasantville, New York's Usonia community.

King sets many of his stories in Maine

In the process, he has created a few fictional towns. This extensive travelogue by a superfan explores the writer's favorite haunts, pinpointing specific details from and inspirations for King's fiction. Helpfully, it also provides plenty of photos, allowing you to venture through King's haunted version of the state without ever leaving the comfort of your home.

Twain claimed to possess 'mental telegraphy'

In an 1891 essay, the writer claimed to possess psychic powers. It’s something that seemingly supported by his mother and his own death: Twain predicted he would die the day after Halley’s Comet returned in 1910, which did indeed happen.

Americans touring the Louvre were inspired to create their own grand museums

The one-time royal residence was first transformed into a public museum in 1793 amid the French Revolution. Americans visiting in the early 1800s were both turned off by the aristocratic grandeur and compelled by the open access to the public. James Fenimore Cooper, the author of "The Last of the Mohicans," apparently came and measured the length of galleries.

Tourists flock to Walden Pond from across the globe

The pond and its surrounding land were privately owned until 1922, when they were deeded to Middlesex County. (Later, management was handed over to the state of Massachusetts.) Thanks to Thoreau's "Walden," the pond has become a popular tourist destination, welcoming over 600,000 annual visitors, with roughly 160,000 of them from outside the United States.

Whitman led a Lincoln lecture late in life

Whitman toured several cities with “The Death of Lincoln,” a lecture series about the slain president that sought to establish him as a crucial figured in American history. The talks attracted famous figures, including Mark Twain and General William Tecumseh Sherman.

Read biographies of 3 generations of the Adams family

The Massachusetts Historical Society provides biographical profiles covering three generations of the Adams family—using its extensive archive of family papers and correspondence to trace one of the most notable dynasties in American political history.

Tour the iconic Sun Studio in Memphis

Sun Studio is responsible for hundreds of hours of American music history, despite its rather modest setup. This tour of the one-room studio is not unlike the tour visitors take, with anecdotes about Elvis, U2, and a pious Bob Dylan, who quickly popped in to pay his respects.

See original photos of King Tut's tomb in updated color

The 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb in Egypt revealed new secrets about the civilization to a fascinated world, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Harry Burton captured the discovery in 2,800 black-and-white glass negatives. Nearly a century later, a selection of the images were colorized by experts .

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

Truth joined a utopian project in the early 1840s

The Northampton Association of Education and Industry was a brief utopian community in Massachusetts that united abolitionists, reformers, and intellectuals. Truth lived and worked alongside William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass; this helped to launch her career as a public speaker and activist.

The skinniest house in America was built out of spite

John Hollensbury was a brickmaker in the early 1800s, living in Alexandria, Virginia. He also had the misfortune of living next to an alley around 7.5 feet wide where horse-drawn carriages scraped against his wall and rowdy loiterers stood by. To solve his problem, he built what is now known as the Alexandria Spite House. Read more about the home created to end neighborhood riffraff.

Tens of thousands of Austen superfans celebrated the writer's 250th anniversary

The Jane Austen 250th celebration sold 15,000 tickets to the writer's most dedicated fans, who dressed in period-specific dress. Austen scholar Devoney Looser says that many readers are attracted to Austen's novels because they're entertaining and funny yet sophisticated works of social criticism.

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

Tuscany is home to a Pinocchio-themed park

Pinocchio Park, originally conceived as a sculpture park, was built around Emilio Greco's "Pinocchio and the Fairy" monument. It now includes an interactive museum, themed rides, and a puppet show.

New York artist Donald Judd turned Marfa, Texas, into an artists' haven

In 1971, Judd arrived in the West Texas hamlet in the brutal high desert, not far from Big Bend National Park. He acquired 22 buildings, repurposing them and inviting other artists to create on-site installations. Today, the Donald Judd Historic District is part of the National Register of Historic Places.

The Constitution was written in the same building where the Declaration of Independence was signed

The US Constitution was drafted in the Pennsylvania State House—the same building in Philadelphia where the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. Read this page from the National Constitution Center for other fast facts about the document.

To be in Connecticut's 1%, you'd need to earn more than $1M per year

That makes Connecticut the most competitive state in the country when it comes to joining the 1%. This map outlines how much it takes in the other states.

Yale returns Inca artifacts to Peru

From the time he came upon Machu Picchu in 1911, Hiram Bingham began removing artifacts and human remains from the site and bringing them back to Yale University. Yale's Peabody Museum held them for 100 years, despite demands by the Peruvian government and the public that they be repatriated. Finally, in 2011, Yale returned thousands of items, including ceramics, jewelry and human skeletons.

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.

In its famous catalog, Sears sold $600 DIY house kits from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in an estimated 100,000 'Sears and Roebuck homes.'

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

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.

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

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

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

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.

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.

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.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

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

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.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

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.

Human-to-human transmission of hantavirus remains extremely rare, so the 2026 hantavirus cruise ship outbreak doesn't mean we're facing a COVID-style pandemic risk.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.

While atoms are normally made of protons, neutrons, and electrons, exotic ones have been built with antimatter—alternate versions of normal matter that live for fractions of a second and are about a billion times as rare.