On this day in 1945, pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in Flossenburg, a concentration camp in the forests of Bavaria. The  39-year old Lutheran, indicted as a co-conspirator in the  […]

On this day in 1891, the famous showman, P.T. Barnum, passed away at the age of 81. Though critically ill, Barnum requested that the New York Sun run his obituary […]

On this day in 1896, the Olympic Games were reinstituted after a 1500 year hiatus. Held in Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics, King George I welcomed 60,000 spectators and […]

On this day in 1955, Winston Churchill resigned as prime minister of Great Britain. This was his second time to serve in the position. He was 80 years old and […]

On this day in 1983, the Challenger space shuttle blasted off on her maiden voyage from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. On the same mission, astronauts Donald Peterson and F.S. […]

On this day in 1860, the first Pony Express ride took place. Conceived as a rapid mail delivery system, the Pony Express route was a string of over 160 stations […]

On this day in 2005, Pope John Paul II died in his private apartment in Rome. In many ways, John Paul was a ground-breaking pope. At age  58, he was […]

On this day in 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, which would ban smoking ads on TV and radio the following year. This was no […]

On this day in 1918, Daylight Saving Time went into effect throughout the U.S. for the first time. Robert Garland, a Pittsburgh city councilman, led the charge to implement DST, […]

On this day in 1867, U.S. Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia to acquire Alaska for $7.2 million—or roughly 2¢ an acre. Though Seward passionately […]