Dynamic Directory - April 26, 2024

On January 6, 1838, Samuel Morse successfully tests an electrical telegraph. So why did it take years longer to send the first message?

Oliver Wendell Holmes is known for some of his free-speech decisions which he wrote while serving as a Supreme Court Justice.

Learn the story behind one of the most-famous photos of the U-boat War: The attack of U-569.

Major Henry Reed Rathbone and his fiancé, Clara Harris, attended a play with Abraham and Mary Lincoln on the night the President was shot. Booth lunged at Rathbone with a knife, injuring but not killing him. Learn how the assassination claimed more victims, years later, when Rathbone himself lost his mind.

Eroded O-rings caused the loss of the space shuttle Challenger. This image depicts how hot gasses were not kept away from the shuttle's fuel during launch.

Although he was a pacifist, who despised war, Albert Einstein also realized that if Hitler and his scientists were the first to discover how to build nuclear weapons, the world would be in even-worse shape.

On August 16, 1896 prospectors find gold in Alaska. The Trump fortune got its start as a result.

During the era of shuttle missions, each shuttle launch included two solid rocket boosters (SRB) which helped to fuel the first minutes of flight.

When technicians are checking whether the O-rings are properly seated, on the space shuttles Solid Rocket Motor, they check for potential leaks.

As Alan Turing and his Bletchly Park colleagues worked feverishly to break the Enigma code, they caught a break when the Royal Navy captured U-110 on May 9, 1941. Onboard was a working Enigma machine and secret codes for the following month. Initially towing the disabled U-boat to Iceland, the crew with the secret treasure was redirected to Scotland.

December-January of 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of the Ardennes Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler meant the major German offensive to turn the tide of war against the Allies. Instead, despite Germany's initial gains, the opposite happened.

NASA's Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) had to be redesigned, after its design flaws caused the loss of Challenger and its seven astronauts.

This drawing depicts a cross section of the Solid Rocket Motor which was in use at the time of the Challenger disaster.

Elizabeth Shoumatoff (1888-1980) was painting President Roosevelt's portrait at his Little White House, in Warm Springs, on the 12th of April, 1945. The President said he had a headache; soon after he was dead.

This image depicts the second page of a letter - from Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt - which changed the world.

Before the Pearl Harbor bombing, Japanese-Americans lived and worked on Terminal Island. After the bombing, their homes were destroyed and their way of life was gone forever.

Before he became a pope, Giuseppe Sarto had a great deal of experience living among his parishoners. As Pope Pius X, he strongly opposed the outbreak of WWI.