In October 1945, shoppers at Macy’s in Manhattan walked past socks and kitchen appliances to find a gleaming two-seat airplane on display. It was the Ercoupe, a sleek all-metal aircraft marketed as so safe and simple, anyone could fly it.

In the beachside town of Pirangi do Norte, Brazil, a cashew tree planted in 1888 has grown into something astonishing. Known as the Cashew Tree of Pirangi, it sprawls across more than 7,300 square meters (1.8 acres)—about the size of 70 average cashew trees.

In 1975, a striking 173-meter skyscraper emerged in Johannesburg’s Berea district. Named Ponte City, the 55-storey concrete cylinder featured a hollow core that funneled sunlight into its wedge-shaped apartments.

On the night of September 5, 1949, 28-year-old Howard Unruh went to the movies in Philadelphia, planning to meet a man with whom he’d been having an affair. Delayed by traffic, he arrived too late.

For decades, paleontologists puzzled over how sauropods—some of the largest land animals to ever live—managed to circulate blood up their towering necks.

On December 8, 2013, Metallica played a concert unlike any other. Inside a transparent dome near the heliport of Carlini Base in Argentine Antarctica, the American heavy metal band performed for 120 people—making them the first group to play on all seven continents.

In the early years of World War I, British and French forces sought creative solutions for desert warfare. Among the strangest was the Sizaire-Berwick Armored Car, later dubbed the “Wind Wagon.”

In July 1959, at the American National Exhibition in Moscow, U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon handed a cup of Pepsi to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

On March 1, 1692, a packed meetinghouse in Salem Village awaited the testimony of a woman few had noticed before: Tituba, an enslaved servant of Reverend Samuel Parris.

On a sunny afternoon in August 2004, passengers aboard a Chicago River architectural tour expected sights of steel, glass, and skyline.