“To be a wise guy was to own the world.” That is, according to Henry Hill, noted Mafia associate, FBI informant—and Lufthansa heist accomplice. On December 11, 1978, six gangsters quietly stole a sum of $5.875 million (roughly $28 million today) from the Lufthansa cargo hold at JFK airport. It was

If you were driving your shiny new Model T—with its 10-gallon tank—from San Francisco to Los Angeles, what were your options for stopping along the way? Hotels existed, of course, but they were pricey. Auto camping was also an option for travelers willing to pitch a tent or sleep in their cars. But

On this day in 1294, Pope Celestine V became the first pope to voluntarily resign the papacy—declaring that he’d rather…live in a cave. Born Pietro Angelerio in Sicily, in what is now southern Italy, to a peasant family, he joined the Benedictine monks, a fairly strict religious order, at age 17

Few historical figures inspire such heated debate among historians as Mary Stuart, better known as Mary, Queen of Scots. Seen as a romantic innocent by supporters and a scheming adultress by detractors, Mary, with her flaming red hair and contentious political maneuvers, was nothing if not

Gone with the Wind premiered on December 15, 1939, at the Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. It would become one of the most successful films of all time, nabbing eight Academy Awards (and two honorary Oscars) in the process. But the glittering premiere was not without its problems. The film

On this night 252 years ago, up to 150 men marched to Griffin’s Wharf in Boston, cheered on by thousands. They donned Mohawk headdresses and painted their faces to disguise their identities. They boarded three ships in the harbor—the Dartmouth, Beaver, and Eleanor. With methodical precision, they

The Simpsons first appeared as an independent series on December 17, 1989, with a Christmas special that helped launch one of TV’s most enduring animated series. “Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire” was actually scheduled to be the eighth episode in the show, but when the pilot’s animation proved

At a meeting of the Geological Society of London on this day in 1912, respected paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward of the British Museum made an announcement that seemed to rewrite human history. For the next 40 years, anyway. Woodward debuted the bones of what he believed to be a previously

Charles Dickens’s parable A Christmas Carol was first published on December 19, 1843. Firmly entrenched in the genre of holiday classics, the tale was written by Dickens in the span of six weeks. And lucky for him, the story was wildly popular, selling out by Christmas Eve. Dickens didn’t write it

On this day in 1812 brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of stories that would make them famous: Kinder- und Hausmärchen (“Children’s and Household Tales”). Among the 156 fables in the first collection was “Hansel and Gretel,” which introduced the world to one unforgettable

It was a stormy day in Springfield, Massachusetts, and the students at the International Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) Training School were restless. It was too cold to play football or lacrosse outside, and gym teacher James Naismith didn’t dare attempt those sports indoors. He needed

Just after midnight on December 22, 1989, workers punched a hole in the Brandenburg Gate. Once the first openings were made, West German police officers and East German border guards shook hands. Germans on both sides cheered in the darkness, celebrating with sparkling wine. Later that day, West

Name an artist, any artist. If you said Vincent van Gogh, perhaps you were primed by our reference to ears: Van Gogh famously cut off his left earlobe with a razor on December 23, 1888. The Dutch Post-Impressionist painter lived a life of indecision and turmoil. One person who always had his back,

Thomas Edison gave the first demonstration of his phonograph in early December 1877, hauling his little hand-crank machine to the New York City office of Scientific American and using it to converse with the magazine’s staff. His voice came through tinny and distant, and not all his words were

On December 26, 1967, Edward Headrick patented the modern “flying saucer” toy. The toy’s story, however, began long before Headrick entered the picture. Starting in the 1870s, college students in New Haven, Connecticut, played a game with pie tins that they had gotten from a local bakery, throwing

Almost 1,400 years apart, two grand structures were inaugurated. The Hagia Sophia was consecrated on December 27, 537 CE, as the largest cathedral in the world (a title it would hold for almost a thousand years). It was introduced by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I with the resounding “Solomon, I

At 7:46 am on this day in 1981, history was born. Her name was Elizabeth Jordan Carr, and she was the first American born via in vitro fertilization (IVF). She joins us today to discuss what it’s like to enter the world as a headline. Britannica: Can you talk about the circumstances of your birth?

On December 29, 1852, 17-year-old Emma Snodgrass was arraigned in Boston for the heinous crime of—wait for it—wearing pants. Many people who encountered her reportedly assumed she was a regular lad about town—and this was precisely the problem, according to officials, as she was in fact born a

December 30 was a major benchmark for the Code of Justinian, or Corpus Juris Civilis (“Body of Civil Law”), which set the basis for much of modern law. Depending on the source, that’s either the day in which major elements of the code went into effect (in 533) or the revised codes themselves became

On New Year’s Eve in 1907, the first ball was dropped in Times Square. It was made of iron, bedecked with 25-watt lightbulbs, and weighed 700 pounds. It took six men to lower it. People loved it. New Year’s Eve in Times Square is now watched around the world. But before countdowns and confetti,

On this day in 1840, Queen Victoria got married…to her cousin, Albert. He was the second son of a foreign duke—and the love of Victoria’s life. Their matchmaker was also in the family: The pair’s shared uncle, King Leopold I of Belgium, first floated the idea the year that his niece and nephew both

On this day in 1963, with the premiere of The French Chef, Julia Child changed cooking—and television—forever. And she did it in a donated kitchen with a wonky stove and a budget so low that the station had to sell the food after each episode to cover costs. Julia embraced mistakes during

Security footage shows two figures approaching the museum with a ladder. They position it near a second-story window. The grainy video cuts away; the rest of the actions are hard to decipher, but one figure seems to drop something from the top of the ladder before descending. This isn’t footage

The funny pages weren’t so funny on this day in 2000. That morning, readers around the world turned to the comic section to discover that Peanuts had ended. The final strip featured a quiet farewell from creator Charles M. Schulz. His health was failing, and he could no longer continue the cartoon.

At 10:30 am on this day in 1929, light snow was falling in Chicago. A black Cadillac—the kind favored by police—pulled up outside the North Side garage of mobster George “Bugs” Moran. Four men got out, two of them in police uniforms. The men entered the small, one-story garage that housed the cars

On a pitch-black night in 1898, as the 324-foot American battleship USS Maine lay at anchor in Havana Harbor, Cuba, an explosion burst beneath the enlisted men’s quarters. Most sailors were in their bunks. Casualties were enormous. The blast shook buildings and knocked out power and telephone lines

“I have a little correspondent in this place, and if she is present will she please come forward?” And so it was, with that request on February 16, 1861, that Grace Bedell met her famous pen pal—President-elect Abraham Lincoln. Their correspondence began four months earlier, when Lincoln was merely

On this day in 1996, world chess champion Garry Kasparov defeated IBM’s Deep Blue computer—but it wasn’t as easy as he had predicted. He had once stated that he would never lose to a machine, but perhaps he was too confident. The very first game of the six-round tournament saw Kasparov defeated in

The butterfly effect, Midwest edition: A hailstorm in Kansas helped lead to the discovery of the dwarf planet Pluto. In 1928 a hailstorm hit the Tombaugh family farm in Burdett, Kansas, and wiped out the crops—and the money earmarked for Clyde Tombaugh, 22, eldest of six, to go to college. Clyde

On this day in 1847, the first of four rescue teams arrived to save the famously ill-fated Donner party from where they sat stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The initial group included the families of George and Jacob Donner, brothers from Springfield, Illinois, and of businessman James

With the stroke of a pen, U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter transformed America’s brewing industry. On October 14, 1978, Carter signed HR 1337, a relatively innocuous (read: boring, unless you care about excise taxes on buses) transportation bill with an interesting amendment, No. 5354, as a rider: the

On this day in 1839 Congress banned the ritual that Lin-Manuel Miranda made famous in the hit musical Hamilton. They outlawed dueling in Washington, D.C., with a law so thorough it basically banned vibes. No challenging someone to a duel. No accepting a challenge to a duel. No delivering a message

On this day in 1972, Richard Nixon became the first sitting U.S. president to visit the People’s Republic of China. Nixon, no doubt thinking about his legacy in these pre-Watergate days, dubbed it “the week that changed the world.” The trip was the product of months of maneuvering by National

On this day in 1980, the impossible happened at the Lake Placid Winter Games: A ragtag U.S. hockey team of college players beat the Soviet Union’s “Red Machine.” In the game’s waning seconds, broadcaster Al Michaels asked, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” Thanks to those words, the upset became

On this day in 1540, more than a thousand men marched north from Mexico in search of cities made of gold. Instead, they found Kansas. It started, as these stories often do, with a shipwreck. In 1536 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Estéban (an enslaved man from North Africa), and two other survivors

In 1582 a pope rearranged time. Thursday, October 4, would be followed by Friday, October 15, according to a papal bull issued on this day. It erased 10 days and changed the calendar for Catholic Europe. We have Pope Gregory XIII to thank for creating the commission that developed what we now call

On this day in 1964 Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., shocked the boxing world: The unpredictable and often showy amateur took on Sonny Liston, the reigning heavyweight champion—and won. Then just 22, Clay was known for his lax stance, his fleet feet—and his big mouth. Clay had goaded Liston into the

On this evening in 1815, a man boarded a ship and attempted one of history’s most audacious comebacks. It ended with his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The man, of course, was Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, exiled emperor of France. Napoleon had been hell-bent on expanding France’s territory during

On this day in 1942 a British physicist made a monumental discovery…and couldn’t tell anyone. British radar equipment operating at 55–85 MHz was experiencing severe interference: strange, powerful signals that jammed their systems. This was the middle of World War II, so everyone assumed that the

At 11:03 pm on this night in 1983, the flow rate in New York City’s water tunnels jumped by an extraordinary 300 million gallons: The series finale of M*A*S*H had just ended, and everyone was going to the bathroom at once. That’s because 77 percent of televisions turned on in America were tuned to

On this day in 1887, in a town in western Pennsylvania that barely qualified as a town, a group from the local Elks Lodge set out in the cold to find a rodent to predict the weather. The animal saw his shadow, which meant six more weeks of winter. This proved accurate—as long as you didn’t look

On this day in 1690 (or possibly 1691, depending on which historical records you trust), the Massachusetts Bay Colony printed £40,000 in paper money—something no government in the Western world had ever done. This wasn’t the colony’s first flirtation with fiat: In December (of 1689 or 1690)

On this day in 1938, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs hit theaters nationwide, forever changing animation—and saving Walt Disney from bankruptcy. The first full-length animated feature film, it took three years and $1.5 million ($36 million today)—six times its original budget—to make, and it

On this day in 1803, 32-year-old English explorer George Bass set sail from Sydney aboard the Venus with a crew of 25, bound for Tahiti. No one knows if they made it. The ship and its men vanished without a trace. Bass was already something of a legend. Trained as a Royal Navy surgeon—and

On this day in 1840, New Zealand became British—on paper. By the 1830s, things on Aotearoa—the name the Māori people who had settled New Zealand centuries earlier gave their land—were out of control. Māori outnumbered British settlers 62 to 1, but newcomers—mostly whalers, merchants, and

On this day in 1914 Charlie Chaplin debuted his “Tramp” character in Kid Auto Races at Venice. The Tramp would become one of the most recognizable figures in cinema, with his small derby hat, large shoes, and ill-fitted suit. Today was his test drive. The setting for the live, improvised film was

On this day in 1943, with World War II well underway, the Imperial Japanese Navy evacuated its 10,000 remaining troops from the island of Guadalcanal. Allied forces had finally secured control of the southern Solomon Islands, a strategic victory six brutal months in the making. This evacuation

Today in 1992 Magic Johnson was named MVP of his 12th NBA All-Star Game—the only game he played that entire season. His Western Conference team trounced the East, 153–113. The longtime Laker and three-time league MVP led the field in points (25) and assists (9) while completing the kind of

On a starlit night in 49 bce, Julius Caesar and his army crossed the Rubicon River—which was more of a stream, really—to take control of the Roman Republic. The decision to cross the symbolic and literal boundary between Caesar’s territory of Gaul (located in modern-day France) and Italy was not

On this day in 1878 Alexander Campbell of the New York Dairy Company Ltd. pulled off something revolutionary: He delivered milk that was contained. There was no ladling, pouring, or siphoning into whatever tub, bucket, or pail was handy. This milk arrived in a clean, clear (this will matter later)

The Motown Record Corporation—which gave us the likes of the Supremes, the Temptations, and the Jackson 5—owes its existence to Berry Gordy, Jr., an $800 loan from his family, and the encouragement of his friend Smokey Robinson. Gordy launched Tamla Records on this day in 1959, signing Smokey

“That none from henceforth shall use to multiply gold or silver, nor use the craft of multiplication; and if any the same do…that he incur the pain of felony in this case.” On this day in 1404 King Henry IV of England outlawed alchemy. The Act Against Multipliers made it a felony to practice

On a balmy California day in 1973, the Miami Dolphins won the Super Bowl and became the first and only team in NFL history to win every game in a modern season (aka those since the Super Bowl era began in 1967). The Dolphins went 14–0 in the 1972 regular season and then won their three playoff

The story goes that on this day in 1797, an alarming sight caused a ruckus on the streets of London: a man wore a top hat. It was made of beaver and brushed silk, as were most men’s hats at the time. But this one was so tall that women fainted, children fled, and dogs snarled. In the commotion, one

On this day in 1978 NASA made an announcement: It had recruited the first new class of astronauts in almost a decade. Among these “thirty-five new guys,” as the candidates called themselves, were—for the first time—six women: physicist Sally Ride, electrical engineer Judith Resnik, geologist

On this day in 1953, GM’s Motorama traveling auto show rolled into New York’s Waldorf Astoria. It was a lavish production that included dancers, models, and musical numbers. Among the glitzy concept cars and current models was something unexpected: the Chevrolet Corvette, which was neither pure

On this day in 1943, with hundreds of thousands of troops overseas fighting Nazi Germany and the Axis powers, Americans were already deep in the daily restrictions of wartime life. Sugar and gasoline were in short supply. Tires and coffee were scarce. Ration books and their stamps were part of

On this day in 1953, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz welcomed a baby boy. Twice. In real life, actress Lucille Ball gave birth to her son Desi Arnaz, Jr., via a planned C-section. On I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ricky Ricardo welcomed “Little Ricky” in an episode widely credited as the first-ever to feature a

On this day in 1999, 11 European Union (EU) countries changed their money. Citizens in Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain woke up to find their bank balances listed in a brand-new currency: the euro. The change was expected, but

On a frigid January afternoon in 1961, U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy stood before a crowd of nearly 1 million to deliver his inaugural address. Eight inches of snow had fallen the night before, and the youngest person ever elected president, the war hero, spoke wearing no coat. His breath formed

Stop, hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going…up. That sound was a sonic boom from Concorde, the world’s first turbojet-powered supersonic passenger aircraft. Developed in the 1960s as a joint project between France and Great Britain, Concorde marked its debut with two simultaneous

On this day in 1984, a new kind of television commercial quietly made history. Apple Computer’s now-legendary “1984” ad became just as famous for what it didn’t say as for what it did say. But the commercial almost didn’t see the light of day. Airing during Super Bowl XVIII, the 60-second ad showed

On this day in 1973, U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon addressed the nation to announce what could be called a historic breakthrough: “We today have concluded an agreement to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and in Southeast Asia.” Except it wasn’t so. Nixon spoke with visible relief as he

There’s gold in them thar…creeks. If you got there early. On this day in 1848, construction superintendent James Marshall spotted something sparkling in the riverbed while overseeing excavation for a sawmill for John Sutter in California. Marshall ran some then-common tests on the yellow

On this day in 1979, Robert Nicholas Williams died at work. Born in 1953, Williams lived in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. He was survived by his wife and three children, his mother, and five sisters. The 25-year-old was a normal young man with a normal life—until the manner of his death made history.

On this day in 1905, the world’s largest diamond was unearthed at the Premier Mine in South Africa. Then it was promptly yeeted out a window. When the stone was brought to the mine’s office, the clerk on duty dismissed it as a worthless hunk of crystal. Diamonds simply weren’t that big. So he

On this day in 1302, Italian poet Dante Alighieri was exiled from Florence. Sentenced by a court of his political enemies—and threatened with death if he returned—he spent the rest of his life wandering Italy. But Dante wasn’t one to let his enemies have the last word. During his exile, he composed

The night before the Challenger space shuttle was slated to take off on its 10th mission, a cold wave swept through Florida. By morning the launch pad was covered in a layer of ice. Barely over a minute after the shuttle had blasted off at 11:38 am, television audiences across the United States

On this day in 1845, “The Raven” appeared in print for the first time—though who published what first gets a bit tangled. In the New York Evening Mirror of January 29, advance sheets from the American Review brought readers Edgar Allan Poe’s ballad of lost love. The American Review publication

On this day in 1839 French artist and chemist Louis Daguerre made the first image of the Moon. Probably. No one alive today knows what the image might have looked like, because—unfortunately for Daguerre and the rest of the art-appreciating world—his studio burned down shortly after. History’s

In the early afternoon of January 30, 1969, passersby along London’s Savile Row heard history being made: On the rooftop of Apple Corps headquarters, the Beatles played what would turn out to be their final concert together. The 42-minute set—cut short by police intervention—featured performances

On this day in 1949, the first daytime TV soap opera premiered—and flopped. These Are My Children was broadcast live on NBC, marking the first time a continuing daytime serial drama was carried on a major network. The 15-minute daily program focused on Mrs. Henehan, an Irish widow running a

In 1986 the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inducted its first 10 musical icons, including such recognizable figures as Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. Noticeably, however, the group didn’t include a single female artist. Fast-forward to January 3, 1987, when Aretha Franklin was announced as the first

“The Great Society asks not how much, but how good; not only how to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed.” —Lyndon Baines Johnson On Monday, January 4, 1965, U.S. Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson delivered the first prime-time televised State of the Union

On January 5, 1709, Europe’s coldest winter in 500 years crept in overnight. The chill stretched from England to Russia. Whole trees froze and shattered. Trade came to a standstill, as snow made roads impassable, and the Thames River and the Baltic Sea froze. Copenhagen Harbor reported 27 inches of

“Why? Why? It hurts so much. Why me?” That was the anguished cry from Nancy Kerrigan on this day in 1994, after she was clubbed by a masked man following a practice session for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The incident sparked a media frenzy that only intensified after it was revealed

Black holes sound like science fiction: collapsed stars whose incomprehensibly powerful gravitational pull absorbs everything around them. Scientists had theorized the existence of these mysterious celestial objects for centuries, but how do you discover something in the depths of space that emits

In the long span of UFO sightings, which range from obvious hoaxes to truly unexplained phenomena, the Trans-en-Provence incident endures as one of the most lasting enigmas. On January 8, 1981, Renato Nicolai observed a flying object by his property in southeastern France. He described it as a

The only medieval trial recorded with painstaking accuracy began on this day in 1431, when 19-year-old Joan of Arc went on trial in France. “Joan the Maid” (as they called her in the trial notes) faced more than 70 accusations that included—in no particular order here—heresy, murder, horse theft,

On this day in 2002, one of the weirdest side effects of capitalism was thrust into the spotlight, literally: lighting. This included spotlights, street lamps, floodlit billboards, and neon signs, all the trappings of commerce that proliferated in the Czech Republic in the economic boom that

On June 2, 1953, a 27-year-old Elizabeth II rode to Westminster Abbey in a gilded coach for her coronation, passing millions of spectators. Among them was 23-year-old Jacqueline Bouvier, a reporter for the Washington Times-Herald. The woman we’d know better in the future as Jackie Kennedy wrote a

The Dutch East India Company might be best known today for introducing tea to Europe—and for the later Boston brouhaha (emphasis on brew) that resulted—but for the Netherlands in the 1600s, it was proof that a corporation could help build an empire. And it was a huge success. So huge, in fact, that

“Can you imagine, wending your way through a spacious food market without having to carry a cumbersome shopping basket on your arm?” Sylvan Goldman, through a Standard Stores advertisement, asked readers of the Oklahoma City Advertiser that very question this day in 1937, inviting them to try the

The Kennedys are basically American political royalty. They’ve been relevant since the first Kennedy to enter politics, P.J., traded whiskey-importing for the Boston political machine about 1900. With a Kennedy still prominent in U.S. politics and JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette’s whirlwind romance

On this day in 1982, every planet in the solar system aligned on one side of the Sun—and we braced for the world to end. And then nothing happened. That planetary panic was thanks to the 1974 book The Jupiter Effect, in which scientists John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann claimed that the temporary

When the lights dimmed and the curtain rose at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre on this day in 1959, history was made—twice. With the opening of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway, and Lloyd Richards became the first Black

On this day in 1930, a small group of Indian citizens set out on a walk toward the sea. They intended to break British law—by producing salt from seawater. Salt production and distribution in India had long been a lucrative monopoly for the British. Indians were prohibited from producing or selling

Everyone knows Uncle Sam: the tall hat, the striped trousers, the pointed finger. He feels as old as the country itself. Yet his first appearance in an American cartoon came relatively late—in 1852—and he was still evolving. Before Uncle Sam, other figures represented the young country, including

In February of 1949 a reporter for the Washington Daily News made an unusual request to the FBI: He asked for the names of the “toughest guys” the Bureau was after. The FBI complied. The paper ran 10 photos and bios on the front page, and several of the men were soon turned in. Knowing a good thing

On this day in 1940, the Nazi Party—by way of Hermann Göring, Adolf Hitler’s second-in-command—issued a decree: “Reclaiming all Bells for War Purposes.” The order called for the seizure of church bells across the land. By 1944 the policy had spread across a lot of land: Austria, Belgium,

“Welcome, Englishmen! Do you have beer?” Those were the first words that Samoset, an Abenaki leader, spoke to the Pilgrims at Plymouth colony. He carried a bow and an empty quiver—a sign he meant no aggression—and wore a loincloth and moccasins. Concerned that he might be cold, the Pilgrims offered

On this day in 1941, U.S. Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a dedication speech to some 6,000 guests in the rotunda of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., accepting the new museum on behalf of the nation. He praised Andrew Mellon, who, before his death in 1937, had donated his art

In the early 1660s, French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal knew he didn’t have much time left. He decided to spend some of it inventing public transit. The world’s first fixed-route public transit system grew out of a petition to King Louis XIV. A group of Parisian entrepreneurs wanted

The Basilica de la Sagrada Família is inextricably tied to Antoni Gaudí. Its hivelike towers, stalactitic portals, and arborescent supports totally embody the Catalan architect’s vision for the church of the future. But when the bishop of Barcelona laid the basilica’s cornerstone on this day in

On this day in 1872 the United States did something new: Pres. Ulysses S. Grant signed the act establishing Yellowstone National Park, widely considered the first national park in the world. The act protected a place that people hadn’t believed existed just decades earlier: Reports from early fur

Uncle Tom’s Cabin played a crucial role in shifting white American sentiment against slavery, even as it propagated a narrative that was deeply problematic in its own right. Written by abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, the story first appeared as a serialized work in 1851 and was published as a

At 10:50 am on this day in 1963, the Federal Bureau of Prisons formally closed the maximum-security prison on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The remaining 27 prisoners were transferred. One of them summed it up on his way out: “Alcatraz was never no good to nobody.” It closed because it was

On this day in 1621, the man who would later be called the “father of international law” was smuggled out of prison disguised as a chest of books. It was his wife’s idea—and it worked. Dutch legal scholar and political thinker Hugo Grotius was precocious to the point of legend. He entered

Draft ads that ran during World War I might’ve read like this: Seeking service members to deliver messages on the front. Exposure to shelling and gunfire. Expected to travel long distances, risk serious injury. Must be comfortable flying at night and in extreme weather. By the time the war was

On this day in 1882, German physician Robert Koch gave a lecture at the monthly meeting of the Berlin Physiological Society announcing that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis: the tuberculosis bacterium. That sounds like a well, duh, now. But that night, the shy, usually hesitant man spoke