Gloria Steinem's new memoir, and the life behind it
Gloria Steinem died aged 92, weeks before her second memoir, An Unexpected Life, came out. It goes back to Toledo, India, and a lasting fear of poverty.
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Ford's moving line cut a Model T from 14 hours to 93 minutes
In 1913 Ford's Highland Park plant started a moving assembly line. Build time fell from 14 hours to 93 minutes, and the car's price fell with it.
A 1978 US law put Native American families first in adoption
The Indian Child Welfare Act told US states to place a Native child with family or their tribe first. The Supreme Court upheld it in 2023.
America's 17-year cicadas wait for warm soil to surface
Some periodical cicadas spend 17 years feeding on tree roots, then surface together once the soil warms. Why they keep such long cycles is still unclear.
A blowout preventer failed to stop the Deepwater Horizon well
A blowout preventer is a seabed stack of valves built to seal a runaway well. On Deepwater Horizon in 2010 it failed. A capping stack later stopped the flow.
Disneyland's chaotic 1955 opening set the theme park standard
Disneyland opened in Anaheim on July 17, 1955, to forged tickets, broken rides and soft asphalt. It still set the standard for what a theme park could be.
A 30-point credit score rise can cut a US mortgage rate
US mortgage lenders price conventional loans in 20-point credit score tiers. A 30-point rise can cut the rate by 0.25 percentage points or more.
Chicago's steel frame, and the iron mill that came first
The Home Insurance Building carried its floors on a steel and iron skeleton, not its walls. That idea let Chicago build past five storeys.
Thalidomide: the sedative that rewrote US drug law
FDA reviewer Frances Kelsey's refusal to approve thalidomide in 1960 led to the US law requiring proof a drug is safe and effective.
Cheap Broadway tickets: rush, lottery and standing room
Rush seats cost $40 to $53 at the shows checked. Lotteries open the day before, and standing room goes on sale only for sold-out shows.
Delays sent the first nuclear reactor to a Chicago squash court
Arthur Compton moved the reactor under Stagg Field in 1942 after the planned site stalled. Enrico Fermi's team then ran the first chain reaction.
Fei-Fei Li built ImageNet while her field doubted data
Colleagues told Fei-Fei Li her plan to label 14 million images went too far. Three years after its release, it helped set off the deep learning boom.
The classic smiley face cost $45, and no trademark came with it
Harvey Ball drew the best-known smiley face in ten minutes for $45 in 1963. He never trademarked it, and the Spain brothers later claimed it.
Congress counts the votes that name the next US president
Every four years Congress opens the sealed electoral votes, counts them in one joint session, and reads out who won. Here is how that day works.
Apple v the FBI: the US fight that one iPhone started
In 2016 a US judge told Apple to help the FBI into a gunman's iPhone. Apple refused, calling it a backdoor, and the case ended when a hired firm broke in.
No Child Left Behind tied some US school funding to test scores
Congress passed No Child Left Behind by 384 to 45 in the House and 91 to 8 in the Senate. Schools that kept missing targets faced closure.
The 1903 Chicago theatre fire that killed over 500 people
The Iroquois Theatre fire of December 30, 1903 killed hundreds behind locked gates and inward doors. The outrage pushed US cities to rewrite fire codes.
At Grasshopper Pueblo, teeth showed who came from elsewhere
Strontium locked into tooth enamel records the rocks under a person's childhood home. Archaeologists compare it with bone to track ancient migrants.
News sites test two headlines and keep the one you click
News sites show different headlines to small slices of readers and keep the winner. One word, epic, doubled clicks for The Dodo. Here is how it works.
Every Time I Die guitarist and wrestler Andy Williams dies at 48
Andy Williams, founding guitarist of Every Time I Die and the AEW wrestler known as The Butcher, collapsed after a match in Pennsylvania and died aged 48.
Artemis II flew people farther from Earth than ever before
Four astronauts looped around the Moon in April 2026 on Artemis II, the first crewed flight past low Earth orbit since Apollo ended in 1972.
Disney's Snow White opened to $43m in North America
Disney's live-action Snow White spent nine years reaching cinemas, took fire from both political sides, and failed to earn back its $250m to $270m budget.
A US habeas petition makes the government justify detention
A US habeas corpus petition makes the government show a judge its legal basis for holding someone. Immigration lawyers have filed more than 52,000.
Harry Harlow's monkeys preferred a cloth mother to a wire one
Harry Harlow's infant rhesus monkeys fed from a wire mother, then went straight back to cling to a cloth one. Comfort, not milk, drew them.