Pauline Cushman, born Harriet Wood in 1833, transitioned from acting to espionage during the American Civil War. Originally pursuing an acting career in New York, she later moved to Louisville, Kentucky. It was here, under Union control yet rife with Confederate sympathizers, that her life took a dramatic turn.

In 2006, casino mogul Steve Wynn agreed to sell Pablo Picasso’s 1932 painting Le Rêve to hedge fund manager Steven Cohen for $139 million, a record-breaking price for an artwork at the time.

In May 1944, weeks before the D-Day invasion, British intelligence noticed unusual activity in the Daily Telegraph crossword. Key codenames like “Utah,” “Omaha,” “Overlord,” and “Neptune,” crucial to the Allied invasion plans, appeared as answers in the puzzles.

On March 11, 1970, British Rail engineer Charles Osmond Frederick filed a patent for a revolutionary concept: a flying saucer powered by nuclear fusion. The patent, GB1310990, outlined a craft designed for supersonic speeds and vertical takeoff and landing.

In 1895, Jessie Allan, a librarian in Omaha, died of tuberculosis. Her death fueled fears that contaminated library books could spread deadly diseases like tuberculosis and scarlet fever. This panic, known as the “great book scare,” gripped the public in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 2003, the New Zealand government proposed a tax targeting methane emissions from livestock to combat greenhouse gases. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, accounts for nearly half of New Zealand’s emissions due to its vast agricultural sector, particularly sheep and cattle farming.

On November 11, 1918, the world stood on the brink of peace. The armistice had been signed earlier that morning, set to take effect at 11:00 a.m. Despite this, fighting continued in the final hours as troops awaited the official ceasefire.

In the late 1800s, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the U.S., killing one in seven people. The Ladies’ Health Protective Association (LHPA) campaigned to combat the disease, believing spit-filled sidewalks spread the bacteria. In 1896, they succeeded in pushing New York City to ban public spitting.

In the early 1960s, Ed Dwight, a U.S. Air Force test pilot, was poised to make history as NASA’s first African American astronaut candidate. Born in Kansas City in 1933, Dwight’s talents in engineering and aviation earned him a place at the prestigious Aerospace Research Pilot School, where he trained alongside aviation legends like Chuck Yeager.

In 1930, 16-year-old George Nissen from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, attended a circus and watched aerialists land on safety nets. Inspired by their soft bounces, Nissen envisioned a device that could allow continuous bouncing. Using canvas and wood, he built his first prototype, even dismantling his own bed in pursuit of his dream.