7 Amazing Rags to Riches Stories
First modern Olympic Games
On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece, are reborn in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. At the opening of the Athens Games, King Georgios I of Greece and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed athletes from 13 nations to the international competition...
What is the Rosetta Stone?
In the 19th century, the Rosetta Stone helped scholars at long last crack the code of hieroglyphics, the ancient Egyptian writing system. French army engineers who were part of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egypt campaign discovered the stone slab in 1799 while making repairs to a fort near the town of Rashid (Rosetta). The artifact, which is made of granodiorite, came into the possession of the British after they defeated the French in Egypt in 1801...
10 Things You May Not Know About “Typhoid Mary”
On March 27, 1915, New York City health officials quarantined the 45-year-old woman known as “Typhoid Mary” for the second time after linking her to another typhoid fever outbreak. A century later, the name “Typhoid Mary” remains well known, but the details about her life are not. On the 100th anniversary of the start of her 23-year exile, learn 10 surprising facts about one of history’s most famous infectious disease carriers.
1. Her real name was Mary Mallon.
She was born on September 23, 1869, in Cookstown, a small village in the north of Ireland. Mallon’s hometown in County Tyrone was among one of Ireland’s poorest areas...
Lincoln, Grant and Sherman Huddle Up, 150 Years Ago
On March 27, 1865, and then again the following day, President Abraham Lincoln, General Ulysses S. Grant and General William T. Sherman (along with an admiral, David D. Porter) held talks aboard the president’s steamship in City Point, Virginia. Grant had worked closely with Lincoln ever since receiving command of all Union armies a year earlier, and he had developed a tight friendship with Sherman while serving alongside him in the western theater. Nonetheless, the three men—generally given credit for steering the Union to victory in the Civil War—had never before met all together. Part social call and part strategy session, they discussed, among other things, what to do with the South following its inevitable surrender.
"The Peacemakers," by artist George P.A. Healy, depicts the March 1865 meeting between William T. Sherman, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln and David D. Porter. (Credit: White House Historical Association)...
7 Ancient Sports Stars
DEA/G. Dagli Orti/De Agostini/Getty Images
1. Theagenes of Thasos
One of the towering figures of ancient sports, Theagenes was a Greek pugilist who supposedly won 1,300 bouts over the course of a 22-year career. His most significant achievements came at the Olympics in 480 and 476 B.C., when he became the first athlete to win the wreath in both boxing and pankration, an ancient form of mixed martial arts. He would win another 21 championships at the Pythian, Nemean and Isthmian games, and even won a crown as a long distance runner during a competition in the city of Argos...
6 Explorers Who Disappeared
For every Christopher Columbus or Vasco da Gama, there were other adventurers who were seemingly swallowed by the vastness of the oceans, jungles and deserts they tried to explore. Many of these vanished travelers have become sources of enduring speculation, sometimes even inspiring doomed rescue missions. Get the facts on six famous explorers who journeyed to the far reaches of the earth, only to never be seen again.
1. Percy Fawcett
The unforgiving Amazon jungle has claimed the lives of more than one adventurer, but perhaps none so famous as Colonel Percy Fawcett, who disappeared in 1925 while on the trail of a mythical lost city. One of the most colorful figures of his era, Fawcett had made his name during a series of harrowing mapmaking expeditions to the wilds of Brazil and Bolivia. During these travels, he formulated a theory about a lost city called “Z,” which he believed existed somewhere in the unexplored Mato Grosso region of Brazil....
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