Stuff You Missed in History Class

Doss was the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor, though he's not the only one. Two other men, Thomas W. Bennett and Joseph G. LaPointe, Jr. also showed tremendous valor and received the same award, though posthumously.

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When three escaped slaves showed up at a Union position during the U.S. Civil War, the decision of how to handle the situation fell to Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler. His actions led to a situation for which the government was simply not prepared.

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We're halfway through the year, and we have SO MANY unearthed items already! So, after polling listeners, we're adding a mid-year edition of our Unearthed! series.

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Miss Bland was a jockey, a sports photographer, a journalist, a car dealer and a pioneer farmer. She also built Ireland's first powered airplane, entirely by hand, and successfully piloted it.

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She was a black Canadian-American who became the first woman in North America to publish and edit a newspaper. She advocated against slavery, for better lives for free black people, and for women's rights.

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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, many cities were facing the same issue: so much horse manure, they couldn't keep up with it. It created unhygienic conditions, and very real problems.

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Portrayals of this piece of Scottish and English history are often simultaneously romanticized and oversimplified. It's a great deal more complicated than any one event, and is instead the result of many contributing factors.

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For a long time, astronomers believed that there must have been a planet lurking in the gap between Mars and Jupiter. What they found was Ceres, and this object's story is one of scientific cattiness and our ever-evolving understanding of space.

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The Achaemenid Empire was founded by Cyrus II in the 6th century B.C.E., and it became an empire unlike any the world had seen up to that point.

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Because of his previous ties to the Communist Party, his race, and his sexual orientation, the McCarthy era was extremely dangerous for Rustin. This was one of many reasons why his activism focused on other countries in the 1950s.

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