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Frustrated residents of Sheridan, Wyoming, coalesced around the idea of secession, allying with nearby communities to petition for their own state.

HISTORY

How the Great Depression Fueled a Grassroots Movement to Create a New State Called Absaroka

A few weeks after Harriet Beecher Stowe crossed paths with John Andrew Jackson, she began drafting Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

HISTORY

The Black Fugitive Who Inspired 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and Helped End Slavery in the U.S.

Members of the U.S. team participate in the opening ceremony at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

HISTORY

At the 1960 Olympics, American Athletes Recruited by the CIA Tried to Convince Their Soviet Peers to Defect

A 1959 photograph of William "W.R." Saxon, who is standing third from left

HISTORY

This Little-Known Civil Rights Activist Refused to Give Up His Bus Seat Four Years Before Rosa Parks Did

Was Leicester Hemingway's micronation of New Atlantis a quixotic experiment in democracy or an elaborate improv comedy sketch? 

HISTORY

Why Ernest Hemingway's Younger Brother Established a Floating Republic in the Caribbean

In 1881, Fanny Angelina Hesse suggested agar, a jelly-like substance she used in cooking, as a replacement for gelatin, which scientists used to study microorganisms.

HISTORY

Meet the Forgotten Woman Who Revolutionized Microbiology With a Simple Kitchen Staple

“When I was making it, people laughed at me a good deal,” Charles F. Ritchel later said. “But so they did at Noah when he built the ark.”

HISTORY

Twenty-Five Years Before the Wright Brothers Took to the Skies, This Flying Machine Captivated America

In 1866, Joseph A. Joel, a Jewish private in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, wrote a detailed account of an 1862 Passover Seder.

HISTORY

How Jewish Soldiers Celebrated Passover in the Midst of the Civil War