In 1862, during the American Civil War, Confederate rebels Gabriel Rains and his brother George Washington Rains changed warfare forever.   They ordered their men to place specially made explosive torpedoes into the ground as they retreated from the Battle of Yorktown, creating the world’s first land mines.  Their invention would go on to become one of the most destructive and pervasive weapons ever created.

In rural Minnesota a farmer named Olaf Ohman found a mysterious runestone.  Engraved into the stone was an epic tale of adventure and bloodshed, apparently written by Norse explorers.  The discovery of the Kensington Runestone sparked a worldwide discussion about what we know about pre-Columbus European exploration.


Sources:

The Kensington Stone: Anatomy of a Hoax by Harold Edwards from the Minnesota Archaeological Society

The Non-Enigmatic Origins of the Kensington Stone by Helmer Gustavson from the Scandinavian Archaeological Society

Whats the truth behind Minnesota’s Kensington Runestone? by Henry Erlandson from the Star Tribune

The White Hand Gang was a coalition of Irish street gangs in Brooklyn known for terrorizing Italian immigrants.  Even among New York criminals they were notorious for liberal use of violence, lynching dozens of Italians along the waterfront.   The White Hand Gang’s reign of terror ended in 1924 after a violent confrontation with a young Al Capone at a waterfront bar.


Sources:


Capone: The Man and the Era by Laurence Bergreen
Five Families: The Rise, Decline and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires by Selwyn Raab
American Mafia: The History of its Rise to Power by Thomas Repetto 

In 1969 it was not uncommon for American rivers to burst into flames.  Filled with sewage, oil, and agricultural waste, several major rivers were so polluted that they caught fire multiple times.

Here's the story of how the US almost destroyed its rivers, and how it eventually brought them back from the brink.


Sources:
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/cuyahoga-river-caught-fire-least-dozen-times-no-one-cared-until-1969-180972444/]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/this-river-was-once-so-dirty-that-it-caught-fire-now-its-fish-are-safe-to-eat-again

https://www.nps.gov/articles/story-of-the-fire.htm

During the Vietnam War the United States military attempted a strange form of psychological warfare.  Hoping to demoralize and terrify the Viet Cong, American forces used helicopter-mounted speakers to project ghostly screams, distorted Buddhist chants and fabricated sounds of dead Vietnamese soldiers begging for a proper burial. 

For hundreds of years an ancient Aztec temple laid buried beneath the busy streets of Mexico City, hidden and forgotten.


Sources:

The book Broken Spears: the Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico

The Book The Conquest of Mexico by Hugh Thomas

The article Mexico City’s Secret Underground World from the BBC

The article Under Mexico City from the US Archaeology Journal  

How tough was George Washington in a fist fight? Evidence suggests he was tougher than you.


Sources:
Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

https://nwhof.org/hall_of_fame/bio/131

Max Baer is known in boxing circles as one of the hardest hitting men in combat sports history.  Widely feared in the early 1920s and into the 1930s, Baer is credited with killing two different fighters with the destructive power in his right hand.  As thoughtful and empathetic outside the ring as he was a savage within it, Baer became an icon of the sport through his wild life and reckless fighting style.  He gained worldwide recognition when he defeated Hitler’s favorite boxer, Max Schmeling, with the Star of David sewn into his trunks in recognition of his Jewish heritage.  


Sources:

Cinderella Man by James Schaap

Joe Louis: The Great Black Hope by Ernie Bak

https://boxrec.com/wiki/index.php/Max_Baer

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/max-baer

How the Soviet Union conned the United States out of $600 million worth of grain subsidies.



Sources

The book The Great American Grain Robbery and Other Stories by Martha Hamilton

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/how-satellite-maps-help-prevent-another-great-grain-robbery

https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/podcast-wasde-transcript.pdf

The Yamato was the heaviest and most powerfully armed battleship ever constructed.   She carried the most formidable array of naval firepower in history, including three turrets with 69.4 foot long gun barrels — the largest guns ever mounted at sea.  The Yamato departed from the dockyards at Hiroshima in 1942 with the objective of defeating the United States in the Pacific.