In July 1864, Union soldier John Wales January was captured during a cavalry raid near Macon, Georgia. He was sent to the infamous Andersonville prison, later transferred to Charleston, then Florence, South Carolina. There, scurvy and gangrene set into his feet and lower legs.

In 1864, 13-year-old Robert McGee was traveling west with a wagon party near Fort Larned, Kansas, when the group was attacked by Oglala Lakota warriors led by Little Turtle. McGee, already orphaned, was captured, scalped, and left for dead on the plains.

In 1978, photographer Mark Gubin climbed onto the roof of his studio in Milwaukee with a tub of white paint and no particular plan.

In 1932, famed Hollywood makeup artist Max Factor Sr. introduced a device that looked more like a torture instrument than a beauty tool.

As Nazi U-boats struck just miles from U.S. beaches in 1942, the Merchant Marine—made up of civilian volunteers—was tasked with hauling critical war cargo. Lacking military status, they faced deadly attacks in unarmed ships silhouetted by the lights of American cities.

In 1914, 16-year-old Antonio Pasin sold his family’s only mule and sailed from Italy to America. In Chicago, he took any job he could—hauling water, cleaning celery, building pianos—until he saved enough to open a workshop in 1917.

Tucked between two buildings on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus is a city park so small you could walk over it without realizing.

In 1921, a massive aircraft with nine wings and eight engines prepared for flight over Italy’s Lake Maggiore. Designed to carry 100 passengers across the Atlantic, it lifted off only once.

In 2007, a Spanish comedian told a story about losing paella pans to the sea. He couldn’t have known it would make him a global meme years later.

On July 4, 1915, headlines across the United States reported a story that stunned the nation: J.P. Morgan Jr., son of the country’s most powerful banker, had been shot in his own home.