Stories: United States — Page 3

Stories connected to United States.

• White berries with a doll-eye lookActaea pachypoda, native to eastern North America, has white fruit marked by a dark stigma scar. The combinat…
• 518 shells, but no enemy fleetIn July 1943, US ships west of Kiska fired at radar contacts believed to be enemy vessels. Two battleships fi…
• The obituary appeared while he was in AustraliaBritish politician John Stonehouse disappeared from a Miami beach in November 1974, leaving clothes behind. H…
• Newspapers competed over two stray dogsIn 1860s San Francisco, Bummer and Lazarus became celebrated canine companions. Newspapers dramatized their r…
• New York once demonstrated an air-powered subwayOpened in 1870, Beach Pneumatic Transit ran a single shuttle through a short underground tunnel. A large blow…
• Opened in July, collapsed in NovemberWashington’s first Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened on 1 July 1940. Its wind-driven movement had already earned i…
• Many residents share one high-rise in this Alaskan townMany residents of Whittier, Alaska, live in the 14-storey Begich Towers, completed in 1957. A tunnel connects…
• The gold-coloured beetle can turn reddish-brownCharidotella sexpunctata, native to the Americas, measures about 5–7 millimetres as an adult. Its mirror-like…
• The Egg War involved gunfire, not thrown eggsIn 1863, competing collectors fought over seabird eggs on California’s Farallon Islands. On 4 June, an attemp…
• The mail-train dog needed a jacket for his souvenirsIn the late nineteenth century, Owney travelled with mail bags and became a favourite of American postal work…
• A Sunday dust storm darkened the plainsOn 14 April 1935, a severe dust storm swept the American plains. Known as Black Sunday, it forced people to s…
• The returning dog appeared as himself on screenBobbie disappeared during his owners’ visit to Indiana in August 1923. He returned to their Oregon home in Fe…
• These salamanders breathe through skin and mouth tissuesHydromantes salamanders live in California’s mountains and belong to a lungless family. They breathe through…
• The shipment arrived with more camels than it began withIn 1855, Congress funded an experiment using camels for US military transport. A team acquired 33 animals aro…
• Around thirty thousand fans followed a dressed-up squirrelTommy Tucker became an American celebrity in the 1940s, appearing before children and at war-bond events in s…
• Planted gems made an American diamond field look genuineIn 1872, two men persuaded investors that they had found a rich American gem deposit. They had actually plant…
• Disaster relief led to a Christmas gift across the borderBoston sent relief after the 1917 Halifax harbour explosion in Canada. Halifax sent a Christmas tree in thank…
• The forces landing on Kiska found no Japanese garrisonAmerican and Canadian forces landed on Kiska in the Aleutians in August 1943, after the Japanese garrison had…
• Old comrades confirmed the veteran’s identity during a pension inquiryAlbert Cashier served in the American Civil War and continued living as a man after leaving the army. When hi…
• River ice can turn like an enormous round recordIn January 2019, an ice disc roughly 91 metres wide appeared on a river in Westbrook, Maine. Slowly rotating…
• A tiny spider’s abdomen can look like a spiny shieldGasteracantha cancriformis is an orb-weaving spider found in the Americas. Females have broad abdomens with s…
• Keeping the useful parts of lunchElysia chlorotica, a green sea slug found along North American coasts, retains chloroplasts from the algae it…
• Rescued on a railway station floorIn January 1943, Alan Magee was thrown from a damaged American bomber over France with an unusable parachute.…
• Social exclusion reached the CabinetBetween 1829 and 1831, John and Peggy Eaton faced exclusion from Washington social circles. Criticism of thei…
• Out of his enclosure, still at the zooIn 1985, San Diego Zoo orangutan Ken Allen repeatedly escaped from his enclosure. During escapes he strolled…
• A rescued cat with a huge audienceSockington was found outside a Boston subway station in 2004. His owner later began posting from the cat’s im…
• The sergeant laid an eggFrancis Fagan acquired duck Siwash in a New Zealand raffle. In 1943 she became a US Marine unit’s mascot and…
• Faith found her own way to moveFaith, a dog in the United States, was born with an impaired front limb and became known for walking on her t…
• Rowing to a governor’s inaugurationOn January 10, 1862, Leland Stanford travelled by rowboat to his inauguration building in Sacramento. Severe…
• A wheatfield near Wall StreetIn 1982, artist Agnes Denes planted wheat on a landfill in lower Manhattan near Wall Street. The field needed…
• A swimsuit fitting at 56 led to bodybuildingErnestine Shepherd began exercising with her sister after a swimsuit fitting at age 56. She went on to compet…
• The firefighting water froze againDuring New York’s fire of December 16, 1835, severe cold had frozen major water sources. Firefighters cut thr…
• A life recorded in five-minute intervalsRobert Shields recorded his everyday life in five-minute intervals from 1972 to 1997. Ordinary tasks such as…
• Old-looking paper did not make it genuineThe salamander letter sparked debate over early Latter Day Saint history in the 1980s. Some experts accepted…
• A throne from discarded materialsJames Hampton worked as a janitor while building a religious assemblage in a rented Washington garage. Over 1…
• A novelist’s revenge became an art hoaxIn 1924, American writer Paul Jordan-Smith devised a fake art movement after his wife’s paintings received a…
• A town resisted easier through travelIn 1853, a plan to standardize railway gauges near Erie, Pennsylvania, triggered a conflict. Transfers brough…
• Winter ice for a summer drinkDorothy Molter made root beer for canoeists visiting her home on Minnesota’s Knife Lake. Without electricity,…
• An undertaker helped automate telephone callsAlmon Brown Strowger worked as an undertaker before developing an automatic telephone exchange, patented in 1…
• She went for a walk—and covered nearly 3,500 kmIn 1955, 67-year-old Emma Gatewood told her grown children she was going for a walk. She completed the Appala…
• Their utopia still needed farming lessonsIn 1794, British poets Coleridge and Southey planned an egalitarian community in America. They imagined only…
• Paintings in a drugstore led to a solo exhibitionIn 1938, collector Louis Caldor spotted paintings in a drugstore window in Hoosick Falls, New York. Their mak…
• It cost 25 cents to look at her paintingsLouisiana artist Clementine Hunter displayed a sign outside her cabin asking 25 cents to view her work. She p…
• Family outings had to fit the videotapeMarion Stokes recorded television news for decades in the United States. Family outings were arranged around…
• His room held a novel of more than 15,000 pagesHenry Darger worked in hospitals in Chicago and kept his creative work private for decades. When he moved to…
• He teaches mobility using echoesAmerican Daniel Kish is a blind expert in human echolocation. He founded an organization in 2000 and has taug…
• An exhausted farm became a “desert” attractionA Maine farm lost its topsoil through nineteenth-century farming and sheep overgrazing, exposing sand underne…
• The rainbow grasshopper cannot flyNorth America’s rainbow grasshopper has striking red, yellow and pale-green markings against a largely black…
• They escaped slavery posing as owner and servantIn 1848, Ellen and William Craft escaped slavery in the United States by train and boat. Ellen posed as a whi…
• Underwater observations travelled up a telephone lineIn the 1930s, William Beebe and Otis Barton descended in a steel Bathysphere off Bermuda. A cable lowered the…
• A feast can demonstrate wealth through giftsPotlatches among Indigenous peoples of North America’s Pacific Northwest Coast involve hosts distributing gif…
• Dry weather changes this plant’s shapeSelaginella lepidophylla grows in the Chihuahuan Desert of the United States and Mexico. As it dries, its ste…
• A whaling celebration includes a blanket tossNalukataq is an Iñupiat spring-whaling celebration in northern Alaska. Alongside sharing food, participants h…
• A street crossing became news of successIn 1928, Morris Frank trained with guide dog Buddy in Switzerland and returned to New York. He crossed busy s…
• Onion speculation left the contents worth less than their containerIn 1950s Chicago, two traders bought large quantities of onions and onion futures, then flooded the market. P…
• A rivalry between actors became a deadly theatre riotIn May 1849, rivalry involving American actor Edwin Forrest and British actor William Charles Macready helped…
• He hired people to demonstrate shopping cartsSylvan Goldman introduced shopping carts at his Oklahoma City supermarkets in 1937. Working with a mechanic,…
• Young newspaper sellers won a buyback agreementIn 1899, young newspaper sellers in New York stopped selling two publishers’ papers in protest at wholesale p…
• Bicycle popularity drew in too many manufacturersIn the 1890s, safety bicycles and pneumatic tyres helped drive a cycling craze. In the United States, sales g…
• She promoted an unfamiliar fruit with a kiwi-filled lunchFrieda Caplan began selling kiwifruit in the United States in 1962, when it was unfamiliar to many buyers. Sa…
• A meeting about high prices turned into a warehouse attackIn February 1837, New Yorkers gathered to protest rising prices, especially flour. Rumours accused merchants…
• A drive-in experiment began with sheets between treesIn the early 1930s, Richard Hollingshead experimented with watching films from a car at his New Jersey home,…
• A border-defence fort turned out to be in CanadaIn 1816 the United States began building a fort at the northern end of Lake Champlain. A new survey placed th…
• An unfinished notebook became a signalling system for shipsIn nineteenth-century America, Martha Coston found an unfinished marine-signalling idea in her late husband’s…
• The Tabasco business founder omitted the sauce from a life sketchEdmund McIlhenny began selling Tabasco-brand pepper sauce in nineteenth-century America. Yet the article repo…
• A researcher compared a supposed new water with his sweatPolywater attracted attention in the 1960s as a proposed new form of water with unusual properties, including…
• A kitchen-table investigation became a mathematics association’s floorInspired by a magazine column, American amateur Marjorie Rice investigated pentagons that could tile a plane.…
• Forced retirement led Maggie Kuhn to form a movementIn 1970, American Maggie Kuhn had to leave her job at age 65. She joined other retirees to start the movement…
• A popular actress’s studio would not reveal her nameCanadian-born Florence Lawrence became popular in early American films. Fans wrote asking who she was, but Bi…
• Domino videos begun at ten led to film workAmerican domino artist Lily Hevesh started her video channel at age ten in 2009. She posted anonymously for y…
• A glowing fly larva catches prey in sticky websOrfelia fultoni larvae inhabit damp places in parts of the United States. They emit blue light and build stic…
• Opposing lawyers fought in court during the Anti-Rent trialsNew York’s Anti-Rent War of 1839–1845 involved tenants resisting the collection of rents. At a leaders’ retri…
• A climber changed his prosthetic height for the rockAmerican climber Hugh Herr lost both legs below the knee after a 1982 mountaineering accident. Returning to c…
• A veteran organised Baltimore after its bank riotIn August 1835, anger over a bank failure led to attacks on homes in Baltimore. After the mayor resigned, 83-…
• A pencil sharpener returned a certificate with the pencilAmerican cartoonist David Rees launched a hand-sharpening service in 2010. For fifteen dollars at the time, h…
• This wasp lays eggs in beetle grubs undergroundPelecinus polyturator occurs across the Americas. Females have a strikingly long, jointed abdomen and place e…
• Blinking inspired an intermittent wiper mechanismAmerican inventor Robert Kearns said continuous wipers bothered him while driving in light rain in 1963. He m…
• Rancid butter prompted a Harvard rebellion in 1766Harvard students protested over food in 1766. The university acknowledged that much of the butter served was…
• A small anemone can divide after forming two crownsStarlet sea anemones inhabit shallow brackish waters, often buried in sediment with their tentacles exposed.…
• Peace Pilgrim walked beyond 25,000 milesMildred Lisette Norman began her American walking journey as Peace Pilgrim in 1953, speaking with people abou…
• A land crab investigates falling fruitCardisoma guanhumi lives along Atlantic coastal regions of the Americas and eats leaves, fruit and other food…
• Straw-hat policing erupted two days earlyNew York once had an unwritten convention against men wearing straw hats after September 15. In 1922, youths…
• Cooking affordable meals became an experiment in 1890Ellen Swallow Richards and Mary Hinman Abel established Boston’s New England Kitchen in 1890 to experiment wi…