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History.com: How Jim Thorpe Became America's First Multi Sport Star
Decades before Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders starred in baseball and football, Jim Thorpe was America's original multi-sport athlete. A two-time college football All-American and charter member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Thorpe...
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History.com: Colonists at the First Thanksgiving Were Mostly Men Because Women Had Perished
According to this account (elements of which continue to be debated by historians, especially regarding the presence and role of Native Americans), the historic event didn't happen on the fourth Thursday in November, as it does today,...
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History.com: Assassination of John F. Kennedy
This is a unit about the assassination of JFK. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. while riding in a motorcade in Dallas during a campaign visit. Kennedy's motorcade was turning past the Texas...
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History.com: How the First Thanksgiving College Football Game Kicked Off a Holiday Tradition
How the First Thanksgiving College Football Game Kicked Off a Holiday Tradition. In 1876, Yale beat Princeton before a sparse crowd, but by the mid-1880s, their annual contest was a major social event that attracted thousands of fans in...
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History.com: When the Golden Gate Bridge Flattened by 7 Feet and Facts About the San Francisco Icon
The 1.7-mile-long Golden Gate Bridge has endured earthquakes, lead paint and record crowds since its historic construction in 1937. Check out the eight surprising facts about he Golden Gate Bridge.
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History.com: How Military Service Teams Dominated College Football During World War Ii
'Bear' Bryant, who became a legend at Alabama, and future Pro Football Hall of Famers were among the all-star collection of talent. With football fields viewed as proving grounds, the military fielded teams that competed against top...
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History.com: How the Iroquois Confederacy Was Formed
In the story of the Great Law of Peace, Hiawatha and the Peacemaker convince leaders of the Five Nations to literally bury the hatchet. Centuries before the creation of the United States and its Constitution, democracy had already taken...
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History.com: What's the Real History of Black Friday?
The retail bonanza known as Black Friday is now an integral part of many Thanksgiving celebrations, but this holiday tradition has darker roots than you might imagine. This article discusses several myths as to the term Black Friday....
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History.com: Why the Wampanoag Signed a Peace Treaty With the Mayflower Pilgrims
The peace accord, which would be honored on both sides for the next half-century, was the first official treaty between English settlers and Native Americans, and a rare example of cooperation between the two groups. On the orders of...
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History.com: Thanksgiving History Facts and Trivia
What did they eat at the first Thanksgiving? Which president made Thanksgiving a federal holiday? Get Thanksgiving trivia to share around the table. Over the centuries, that briefly-mentioned feast week has taken on a life of its own,...
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History.com: Barbie Through the Ages
Take a look at Barbie's cultural revolution through the decades. Barbie's official birthday is March 9, 1959 -- the day she was officially introduced to the world. Handler always saw Barbie as a reflection of the times, with the first...
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History.com: How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland
For 30 years, Northern Ireland was scarred by a period of deadly sectarian violence known as "the Troubles." This explosive era was fraught with car bombings, riots and revenge killings that ran from the late 1960s through the late...
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History.com: The Surprising Origins of 7 Classic Toys
Many childhood memories include hours spent molding Play-Doh, or watching a Slinky glide down the stairs, or marveling at the transfer of a newspaper comic to a simple wad of Silly Putty. But those famous novelty toys didn't start out as...
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History.com: How the Nfl Popularized Thanksgiving Day Football
Thanksgiving football dates to at least 1876, when Yale defeated Princeton, 2-0, on a cold, bleak afternoon in Hoboken, New Jersey. By the 1890s, many college and high school teams played on the holiday. But the tradition didn't become a...
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History.com: The Native American Origins of Lacrosse
Lacrosse, America's oldest team sport, dates to 1100 A.D., when it was played by the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois people; it was a social event and sometimes played to settle disputes. The early versions of lacrosse matches played by...
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History.com: How Black Women Fought for Civil War Pensions and Benefits
In a time when military pensions were a large part of the federal budget, Black women faced unique challenges in securing compensation. Widows of Civil War soldiers could begin applying to the Bureau of Pensions during the war, and one...
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History.com: Amid the Holocaust's Horrors, Many Jews Found Ways to Mark Hanukkah
From carving menorahs on stolen blocks of wood to creating makeshift wicks from scraps of fat and used loose threads, concentration camp inmates devised covert ways to celebrate the holiday. All over Europe Jews found ways to celebrate...
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History.com: The Nfl's First Playoff Game Was Played Indoors in a Hockey Arena
On December 18, 1932, with waist-deep snow and frigid weather plaguing Chicago, the Bears moved their NFL championship game against the Portsmouth (Ohio) Spartans from Wrigley Field to the indoor arena of the city's NHL team. The...
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History.com: How John Marshall Expanded the Power of the Supreme Court
When John Marshall was appointed chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1801, the nation's highest court occupied a lowly position. There was no Supreme Court Building in the newly completed capital, Washington, D.C., so the six...
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History.com: How Aids Activists Used "Die Ins" to Demand Attention to the Growing Epidemic
As the AIDS crisis took hold in the 1980s, killing thousands of Americans and ravaging gay communities, the deadly epidemic went unaddressed by U.S. public health agencies -- and unacknowledged by President Ronald Reagan -- for years. In...
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History.com: Why Did the Beatles Break Up?
The four Beatles; John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr; changed music forever in a relatively brief time span, bursting onto the scene in 1963 with "Please Please Me" and recording their last albums, "Let It Be"...
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History.com: How 38 Ira Members Pulled Off the Uk's Biggest Prison Escape
During the height of Northern Ireland's "Troubles" in the 1970s and '80s, the British government incarcerated hundreds of Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) paramilitaries inside the notorious Maze Prison. Touted as Europe's most...
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History.com: Tailgating: How the Pre Game Tradition Can Be Traced to Ancient Times
The ritual grew as ownership of automobiles and then mass production of portable grills and plastic coolers soared. Tailgating before college and professional football games is an American tradition. Temporary tent cities pop up in...
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History.com: How Civil War Medicine Led to America's First Opioid Crisis
During the Civil War, military hospitals considered opioids to be essential medicine. Doctors and nurses used opium and morphine to treat soldiers' pain, stop internal bleeding and mitigate vomiting and diarrhea caused by infectious...