The Life and Tragic Death of R101, The W...

When Russia's Dowager Empress was pregnant with the future Tsar Nicholas II in 1868, she dreamed that a peasant would one day kill her son. The idea terrified her, and for the rest of her days she lived under the fear of this prophecy. It may have come true with the arrival at co ... Show More

Everyone knows the American Revolution was won at Yorktown in 1781, when Cornwallis’s Army was trapped, but almost no one knows that victory depended on a Spanish intelligence operative who raised 500,000 pieces of silver in Havana in just 24 hours, convincing Cuban residents to ... Show More

Why did the West dominate all rivals on Earth? How did a group of states that were nearly wiped out in the late Middle Ages by enemies to the south and east grow to conquer the globe by the 16th century? To answer that question, we need to go back to its beginning and see what ma ... Show More

In 1937, the Hindenburg airship burst into flames during its mooring in New Jersey, in the US, killing 35 of the 97 passengers and crew. 

In mythology from around the world the ability to fly was reserved strictly for the gods. Stories about human beings constructing flying machines were usually punctuated with a moral about hubris. Vain attempts at flight were an easy metaphor for the limits of human ingenuity. Ev ... Show More

April 10, 1912. As the RMS Titanic pulls away from a crowded port on the south coast of England, it almost crashes. Just in time, it’s able to turn off its engines and prevent a collision with a smaller ship. Four days later, though, a serious disaster will not be avoided, and th ... Show More

On this episode of Our American Stories, Jeremy Saucier of the Strong Museum of Play shares the long, and surprising, history of pinball--from its origins in French parlor games, to its prohibition, and then to its emergence as the immersive and popular game that it is today; The ... Show More

November 21, 1783. The garden at the Chateau de la Muette is full of expectant Parisians, looking up at the sky. They’re waiting to watch the first two human beings ever take free, untethered flight. After a gust of wind nearly derails the entire operation, some volunteer seamstr ... Show More

April 6, 1924. Four planes rest in the water, preparing for take-off. At 8:30 AM, they pick up speed and hit the air. Eight pilots have begun a dangerous mission: to be the first to fly around the world. This will change our future in a way that few could see in 1924. What did it ... Show More

The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the best remembered nautical disasters in history. Over 1500 passengers died after the luxury ocean liner struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic in April 1912. Since that time there have been many more disasters at ... Show More

The sinking of the RMS Titanic is one of the best remembered nautical disasters in history. Over 1500 passengers died after the luxury ocean liner struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic in April 1912. Since that time there have been many more disasters at ... Show More

"There is no danger that Titanic will sink. The boat is unsinkable and nothing but inconvenience will be suffered by the passengers." The sinking of the Titanic, on a freezing Sunday night in April 1912, claimed more than 1500 lives. But how this state-of-the-art ocean liner came ... Show More

Les années 1950 marquent de le début de l’ère de l’aviation moderne, avec l’arrivée des premiers avions de ligne à réaction. A l’époque,le constructeur britannique De Havilland est le leader mondial du secteur, grace à son avion, le Comet, réputé pour être le plus rapide et le pl ... Show More