While the United States was still deeply divided over slavery, John Brown forced the moral crisis to its boiling point and accelerated the nation on its road to war. Called a martyr, freedom fighter, and madman, his actions are still debated.
In 2002, 125 nations came together to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a judicial body dedicated to the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The culmination of a project dating back to the aftermath of World War II, the ICC has conducted its work in the face of opposition from some of the world’s most powerful states, and faces an uncertain future.
On March 8, 1971, four people broke into the FBI field office in Media, Pennsylvania and stole more than 1,000 classified documents. In the weeks that followed, documents were mailed anonymously to newspapers around the country from an organization calling itself the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI, revealing a vast illegal surveillance operation.
On June 1, 1866, over 1,000 Irish-Americans, known as the Fenians, invaded Canada from Buffalo, New York. It was part of an audacious scheme to seize Canada and use it as a bargaining chip for Irish independence.
In the 1950s, thalidomide was a popular sedative marketed to pregnant women worldwide as an allegedly safe way to relieve morning sickness. In reality, it was far from harmless.
What do Cornell University, Kansas State University, and Florida A&M University have in common? They are three of the hundreds of land-grant universities in the United States.
In 1985, a Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow Warrior exploded in Auckland Harbor. The arrest of two French intelligence officers for the crime sparked an international scandal.
In 1919, the Cincinnati Reds defeated the heavily favored Chicago White Sox in the baseball World Series. One year later, the news broke that the Sox had thrown the game to the Reds, in exchange for bribes from organized crimes Besmirched by the scandal, the 1919 White Sox were referred to ever after as “The Black Sox.”
The exposure of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study in 1972 shocked the nation. More than fifty years later, its impact upon public health continues.
See how a 19th-century spending law evolved into today’s government shutdowns, halting aid, closing agencies, and impacting millions of Americans.
