It’s History

Once one of America's largest cities, Detroit was famously both a behemoth in automobile production and the birthplace of Motown. In recent years, however, it has been amid a financial and social decline—but it was not always this way. Today we will discover the rise and fall of Detroit.

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The Hoover Dam is a marvel of engineering and a popular tourist destination located on the border between Arizona and Nevada in the United States. Built during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the dam serves as a source of hydroelectric power, flood control, and irrigation for millions of people in the Southwest region.

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The Chicago North Shore and Milwaukee Railroad (reporting mark CNSM), also known as the North Shore Line, was an interurban railroad that operated passenger and freight service over an 88.9-mile (143.1 km) route between the Chicago Loop and downtown Milwaukee, as well as an 8.6-mile (13.8 km) branch line between the villages of Lake Bluff and Mundelein, Illinois. The North Shore Line also provided streetcar, city bus, and motor coach services along its interurban route. Extensively improved under the one-time owner of Samuel Insull, the North Shore Line was notable for its high operating speeds and substantial physical plant, as well as innovative services such as its pioneering "ferry truck" operations and its streamlined Electroliner trainsets. Author and railroad historian William D. Middleton described the North Shore Line as a "super interurban"56  and opined that its cessation of rail service marked the end of the "interurban era" in the United States. Since 1964, the Yellow Line of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) has operated over a short segment of the former main line from Chicago to Skokie, Illinois. Operating examples of North Shore Line rolling stock have been preserved in railroad museums, and the former Dempster Street Station is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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The Free City of Danzig (German: Freie Stadt Danzig; Polish: Wolne Miasto Gdańsk; Kashubian: Wòlny Gard Gduńsk) was a city-state under the protection of the League of Nations between 1920 and 1939, consisting of the Baltic Sea port of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) and nearly 200 other small localities in the surrounding areas. Today we discover what remains of the lost nations border marker.

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Did you know that Chicago has a massive building with its own zip code? That's right, and in 1930, the Merchandise mart opened its doors to the world as the largest building in the world. The 4 million square foot area served such a large influx of visitors daily that it required its own L stop and connection to Chicago's now abandoned 60 miles of underground freight tunnel.

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In Tuckerton, NJ, a massive cement monolith sits out of place, and upon closer inspection, out of time. You see, this gigantic block was once the base of the tallest structure in North America and the second tallest in the world after the Eiffel Tower. Built in 1912, the Tuckerton tower stood at 825 feet and was the first and most potent transatlantic broadcasting tower ever, but here's the twist, although it was on US soil, it was entirely built by and belonged to Germany.

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In early colonial times, letter writers sent their correspondence to friends, merchants, and Native Americans via foot or horseback. Most of this correspondence, however, was between the colonists and family members back home in England. In 1633, the first official notice of postal service in the colonies appeared. At the heart of the "mailing industry" is the U.S. Postal Service, which has been active for over two centuries. An explosion of mail in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century drove post offices and large-volume mailers to work together to handle mail more efficiently.

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Immigration is not a new phenomenon. Ellis Island has been the port of entry for many people coming to the US, and sometimes immigrants would be separated from their loved ones during the process. This separation could be for several reasons: some people were considered contagious, some had evidence of communicable diseases, and sometimes families were just separated for administrative purposes. This episode will show you what happened when families were split up and how it impacted those who lived through these difficult moments.

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As a building with a history as odd as it is tragic, the Cliff House is by far one of San Francisco's most iconic historical sites. Today on It's History, we will uncover this history and one of its strangest and most dangerous accidents.

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Wacker Drive is a major multilevel street in Chicago, Illinois, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River in the Loop.[2] The vast majority of the street is double-decked; the upper level is intended for local traffic, and the lower level for through traffic and trucks serving buildings on the road (and originally a dock). It is sometimes cited as a precursor to the modern freeway, though when it was built the idea was that pleasure vehicles would use the upper level. It is the only street in the city that is prefixed with all four cardinal directions, albeit on different parts of its route.[a] The drive is named for early 20th century Chicago businessman and city planner Charles H. Wacker. The upper level is normally known as Upper Wacker Drive, and the lower level is Lower Wacker Drive. A short part has a third level, sometimes called Lower Lower Wacker Drive[3] or Sub Lower Wacker Drive.

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