About 300,000 persons lived in the city of Athens during the Age of Pericles. Slightly less populous than modern Albuquerque, New Mexico, with its 330,000-plus inhabitants.

The Watts riots of 1965 lasted six days, beginning on August 12, 1965. The riot in the largely black Watts district of Los Angeles involved up to 10,000 people. Thirty-four people, most of them black, were killed. Nearly 4,000 people were arrested. Whole blocks were burned, with nearly 1,000 buildings damaged or destroyed. Damage was … Read more

President Teddy Roosevelt drew this unflattering nickname “muckraker” for early 20th-century investigative reporters from the 17th-century allegory Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. In this book, a muckraker is a worker too busy gathering dirt and debris to see the celestial crown overhead.

In 1992, 98 percent of U.S. households had a TV set. Sixty-five percent had two or more. Seventy-seven percent had videocassette recorders.

Influenza was responsible for the most deadly epidemic in U.S. history. An epidemic from March to November 1918 killed over 500,000 people nationwide.

The first political party in America was the Federalist Party, founded in 1790 by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. Around the same time, Thomas Jefferson built a rival organization that became known as the Republican or Democratic-Republican Party.

The first presidential mansion was located at One Cherry Street in New York City. It was not called the White House. George Washington lived there from April 23, 1789, to February 23, 1790.

Bill Clinton was born in the small town of Hope, Arkansas, but was raised in the city of Hot Springs from the age of four.

Henry Ford adopted the eight-hour day and five-day week to alleviate a depression in the auto industry in 1926. The move to reduce working hours curbed overproduction and unemployment in the industry.

The average credit card holder in the U.S. owes $2,317 on credit cards, according to the Nilson Report, Santa Monica, California. About 60 percent of American adults own at least one credit card.

General Zachary Taylor, hero of the Mexican War (1846-48) and president from 1849 to 1850 was “Old Rough and Ready”. Taylor got the nickname for his plain habits and blunt demeanor.

The first woman formally nominated for the U.S. presidency was Belva Ann Lockwood (1830-1917), feminist and lawyer, who was nominated in 1884 and 1888 as the candidate of the National Equal Rights Party. An advocate of equal rights for women and international peace, Lockwood was also the first woman admitted to practice law before the … Read more

D Day is a standard military term referring to the day set for the beginning of an attack. The D stands for “Day” (Day-Day). Similarly, the time for an attack is H-Hour (Hour-Hour). The most famous D Day, the Allied invasion of Normandy, took place on June 6, 1944.

Yes, an airplane has indeed crashed into the Empire State Building. On July 28, 1945, a U.S. Army bomber crashed into the New York landmark, killing 13.

Central Park in New York first opened to the public in October 1858.

In the early United States, the “Old Northwest” represented much of what we would now call the Midwest. Organized as the Northwest Territory in 1787, it was the area bounded by the Appalachian Mountains, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Britain had acquired it from France in the French and Indian War, … Read more

American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson originated the phrase “the shot heard round the world” in his poem “Concord Hymn” (1836). The poem memorialized the Battle of Lexington and Concord of 1775, the first battle of the War of Independence.

The quote “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it” refers to the bombardment of the city of Ben Tre, South Vietnam, during the Tet Offensive in 1968. The army major who said it was unidentified.

A U-2 was an American high-altitude reconnaissance plane. The plane became infamous when a U-2 flown by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union on May 1, 1960, sparking an international incident.

The rockets that the national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner” refers to were Congreve rockets, invented by Sir Thomas Congreve and used by the British in the War of 1812. The noisy, hissing missiles, 42 inches long, were used throughout the British campaigns in Maryland in 1813-14. The rockets initially terrified the Americans but proved to … Read more

Growing out of a 19th-century social group called the Jolly Cooks, the association, the Elks, now known as the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks was formed in 1868 from a desire to broaden their pursuits to include patriotism and public service. They chose the name Elk to project a wholly American image and to … Read more

Four state capitals are named after presidents. They are Jackson, Mississippi; Jefferson City, Missouri; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Madison, Wisconsin.

Albert Goodwill Spalding (1850-1915) co-founded the sporting goods firm “A. G. Spalding and Brothers” in 1876. Born in Byron, Illinois, Spalding pitched for Boston and Chicago and helped to found the National League.

David Wilmot was a congressman from Pennsylvania who in 1846 proposed an amendment to a military appropriations bill that slavery be forbidden in any territory obtained from Mexico during or after the Mexican War (1846-48). The amendment passed in the House but not the Senate.

Yes, there really was a John Deere. In 1839, he invented the steel plow, which, along with Cyrus McCormick’s 1834 invention, the reaper, changed the face of American agriculture.

From left to right, the U.S. presidents are carved on Mount Rushmore are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.

The first African-American to play in the major leagues, Jackie Robinson had no hits in three at-bats in his first game on April 15, 1947. Playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers at Brooklyn’s Ebbets Field, Robinson fielded 11 balls in the 5-3 win against the Boston Braves. That season, Robinson maintained a .297 average and was … Read more

The Heisman Trophy has been awarded since 1935 by the Downtown Athletic Club of New York City to the country’s top college football player.

In President Franklin Roosevelt’s January 6, 1941, message to Congress, Roosevelt called for a world where these “Four Freedoms” were protected: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.

In 1901, John Pierpont Morgan financed the merger that resulted in the formation of U.S. Steel, the first billion-dollar company.