In July 1961, Arkhipov was executive officer on the K-19, a Hotel-class ballistic missile submarine, when a coolant system leak threatened a nuclear reactor meltdown.

On 13 April 1985, in the Swedish city of Växjö, photojournalist Hans Runesson captured an image that would travel around the world.

On 6 August 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a marine engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was finishing a three-month assignment in Hiroshima.

On April 16, 1788, New York City erupted into one of the first major riots in post-Revolutionary America, leaving as many as 20 dead.

Archduke Ludwig Viktor of Austria, the youngest brother of Emperor Franz Joseph, was known in his family by the nickname “Luziwuzi.”

Maurice Tillet was born on 23 October 1903 in the Ural region of Russia to French parents.

During the Great Depression and World War II, millions of rural families in the United States and Canada found an unlikely source for clothing: cotton feed sacks.

For decades, a Coca-Cola–branded vending machine stood quietly in front of Broadway Locksmith on East John Street in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

In 2010, a grandmother from South Korea achieved a feat unlike any other in driving history. Cha Sa-soon, then 69, finally passed her driver’s test—after 960 attempts spread over five years.

In the town of Alton, Illinois, a child was born on February 22, 1918, who would later become the tallest person in recorded history.