Special Report

Untold Stories of American History

Explore the lives of little-known changemakers who left their mark on the country

Illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The American Yawp Vol. II: Since 1877, Getty Images

Frustrated residents of Sheridan, Wyoming, coalesced around the idea of secession, allying with nearby communities to petition for their own state.

How the Great Depression Fueled a Grassroots Movement to Create a New State Called Absaroka

A few weeks after Harriet Beecher Stowe crossed paths with John Andrew Jackson, she began drafting Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

The Black Fugitive Who Inspired 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and Helped End Slavery in the U.S.

Members of the U.S. team participate in the opening ceremony at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome.

At the 1960 Olympics, American Athletes Recruited by the CIA Tried to Convince Their Soviet Peers to Defect

More Stories

A 1959 photograph of William "W.R." Saxon, who is standing third from left

This Little-Known Civil Rights Activist Refused to Give Up His Bus Seat Four Years Before Rosa Parks Did

Was Leicester Hemingway's micronation of New Atlantis a quixotic experiment in democracy or an elaborate improv comedy sketch?

Why Ernest Hemingway's Younger Brother Established a Floating Republic in the Caribbean

In 1881, Fanny Angelina Hesse suggested agar, a jelly-like substance she used in cooking, as a replacement for gelatin, which scientists used to study microorganisms.

Meet the Forgotten Woman Who Revolutionized Microbiology With a Simple Kitchen Staple

“When I was making it, people laughed at me a good deal,” Charles F. Ritchel later said. “But so they did at Noah when he built the ark.”

Twenty-Five Years Before the Wright Brothers Took to the Skies, This Flying Machine Captivated America

In 1866, Joseph A. Joel, a Jewish private in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, wrote a detailed account of an 1862 Passover Seder.

How Jewish Soldiers Celebrated Passover in the Midst of the Civil War

Kellie B. Gormly

USS South Dakota (BB-57) anchored in Hvalfjordur

This 12-Year-Old Boy Fought on a World War II Battleship and Became the Nation's Youngest Decorated War Hero

Gilbert King; Updated by Sonja Anderson

The hideout boasted more than 1,000 bunk beds, a 400-seat cafeteria, individual auditoriums for both the Senate and the House of Representatives, vast water tanks, and a trash incinerator that could serve as a crematorium.

The Town That Kept Its Nuclear Bunker a Secret for Three Decades

Furnished with permission from the British to cross into their waters, Samuel Williams set sail for Penobscot Bay in south-central Maine, which he thought was within a solar eclipse's path of totality.

The Eclipse Chaser Who Led an Expedition Behind Enemy Lines During the Revolutionary War