In the mid-19th century, a trespassing pig wandering into an American farmer’s potato patch on a disputed island nearly ignited a massive war between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Fourteen years before the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic, an American author published a novella describing that exact scenario.

In 1901, a fire station in Livermore, California, installed a standard hand-blown light bulb.

In November 1944, a silent and unguided weapon took to the skies from the coast of Japan, embarking on a 6,000-mile (9,656-kilometer) journey across the Pacific Ocean to strike North America.

During the 1960s, a construction crew restoring the roof timbers of a 17th-century farmhouse in southern Germany pulled a small wooden stick from the rafters.

Collecting a steady paycheck for six straight years without performing a single task sounds impossible inside a modern government office.

On November 25, 1970, five men armed with swords walked into a central Tokyo military base.

In 1851, visitors to London’s Great Exhibition encountered a weather prediction device unlike anything ever built.

On the evening of Sunday, October 8, 1871, a small fire sparked in a barn on DeKoven Street.

Visitors driving through Pickaway Township, Ohio, often brake in shock at the local street signs.