History As It Happened

On a cool October day in 2003, excitement was growing among fans of the NBA as the rookie Lebron James prepared for his first game in the professional league. An extremely talented player, Lebron was drafted straight from high school as a first-round draft pick by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Going pro straight out of high […]

Starting off we have some Halloween-themed treat recipes from Fort Stockton, Texas. These recipes were published in the Fort Stockton Pioneer on October 20, 2011. The article briefly describes the origins of Halloween– it was originally a Celtic festival called Samhain– and compares the similarities between the festival and modern traditions. The author’s personal favorite […]

The first comic I pulled out is an edition of ‘Baby Blues’ from The Quincy Herald Whig, published on October 16th, 2011. Baby Blues first appeared in papers in 1990, and has been published in the Sunday comics all over the country since then. The comic strip is centered on the Macpherson family as they […]

On October 1st, 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum made history. Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City, was sworn into office that day, becoming the first female president in Mexican history. Not only was she the first female president of Mexico, but she was also the first Jewish descent president. The journey to becoming president was full […]

Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida on September 26th, 2024. The category four hurricane was the second major hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season. With 252 fatalities, Helene was the deadliest hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Fears lingering from Katrina and other […]

Occupy Wall Street was a protest that began on September 17, 2011, but lasted far beyond a single day. The protest was a result of the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. Many Americans found themselves in bad financial situations, and grew angry as the income gap between the upper and middle classes began to […]

Colin Kaepernick, a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, caused a controversy that grew beyond the scope of football. Kaepernick had been sitting on the bench during the national anthem for the 2016 pre-season games. His actions were a form of peaceful protest sparked by the killings of multiple black men that summer, joining a […]

Hurricane Katrina was one of the most destructive hurricanes to hit the Gulf Coast in the 21st century. On August 28, 2005, a day before the storm reached Louisiana, it intensified to a Category 5 storm, with sustained winds at times reaching 145 mph. The next day, Katrina brought devastating winds and floods to the […]

Sometimes the answer you are looking for is the one hiding in plain sight. This was certainly the case for Kristofer Helgen and his team, who set out into the cloud forests of South America to answer the question of a mistaken identity. In many museum collections, his team found multiple teeth and pelts labeled […]

On August 8, 2023, parts of the Hawaiian Island of Maui were set ablaze as wildfires began to break out. A combination of high wind speeds and dry weather created the perfect conditions for a small blaze to turn into a massive wildfire. The worst of the fire’s impact was felt in the city of […]

Between the late hours of July 29th and the early morning of July 30th, 2013, the town of Tavares, Florida, was shaken after a nearby explosion. The blast came from a nearby Blue Rhino Propane Plant, where a massive explosion broke out in the facility. The plant was used to refurbish and refill old propane […]

On July 24th, 2005, American Professional Cyclist Lance Armstrong won his 7th Tour de France title. That day, the Quincy Herald Whig published an article describing how Armstrong had managed to grab ahold of his 7th title. He had managed to overtake his biggest rivals and make his way to the end of the course, […]

Bastille Day takes place each year on July 14 in France. The day celebrates the start of the French Revolution, commemorating the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789. However, in 2016, the celebration ended in tragedy. What was a normal Bastille Day soon turned into a deadly occasion when a man drove a truck […]

First up, we have some fun 4th of July comics from The Gazette, published in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in 2003. These comics have humorous takes on the holiday from the series featured in each paper. In Denis the Menace, the kids are filling up a pool while saying that they celebrated Independence Day on the […]

  Currently, fathers day is celebrated in the United States every year on the third Sunday of June. But this wasn’t always the case. In fact, the first fathers day wasn’t celebrated until 1910. In 1988, the Record Courier published an interview with the cousin of Sonora Dodd, the woman credited with the creation of […]

  American Idol has brought to light dozens of famous musicians in the decades since it first aired on June 11, 2002. The show, created by Simon Fuller, was based on a British show titled Pop Idol, which featured the same concept of searching for the best musicians around. The show took the same format […]

On June 5, 2004, President Ronald Reagan died from Alzheimer’s disease. Reagan began his career as an actor before transitioning into politics in 1966, when he became the governor of California. He first ran for president in 1976 but lost the major party ticket bid. Reagan ran again in 1980 and was elected as the […]

Imagine being asked, “What are you in for?” and you have to answer “mowing the lawn”. This situation is something that a man from Ohio could have experienced in 2009. On May 30th, the Bellevue Gazette reported that a man had been arrested for mowing grass in Sandusky, Ohio. John Hamilton had grown frustrated with […]