Category: U.S. Historical News
Teen Fugitive Swam From Randalls Island and Escaped on a Trolley
In 1903, seventeen-year-old Gentle had already slipped past the guards, crossed a mile of institution grounds, and reached the northern end of Randalls Island before…
Young Painter Falls to His Death Inside Greenville Power House
Twenty-three-year-old Noah Webster Smith was painting the ceiling of a Greenville power house when an ordinary afternoon’s work ended in tragedy in 1924. Smith was…
Don’t Poison Baby
At the beginning of the twentieth century, exhausted parents could purchase “soothing syrups,” cordials, and drops intended to quiet a crying baby or help a…
Train Struck 7-Year-Old Brooklyn Boy and Hurled Him 100 Feet
Seven-year-old Willie Linsky was playing near his Brooklyn home in 1908 when something on the opposite side of the railroad tracks caught his attention. The…
New York Lamplighter Beaten to Death After Refusing to Join Strike
When Mount Vernon lamplighter Gregoria De Silvo refused to join a strike in the summer of 1908, he continued reporting for work as usual. That…
4-Year-Old Boy Hopped a Freight Train and Rode Into North Dakota
When a four-year-old boy vanished from his home in Lemmon, South Dakota, back in 1914, his widowed mother searched for him until nightfall. What she…
Ironwood Man “Skinned Alive” By Lightning Bolt
When Tony Kmieck failed to return from a Saturday night fishing trip in 1925, his companions began searching the shores of Iron Lake. They found…
Starkweather Farmhand Killed by Lightning While Standing in Barn Doorway
When a violent summer storm swept across the countryside near Starkweather, North Dakota, in 1905, Burt Martin was asleep in an upstairs room of a…
20 Ohio Miners Found Dead Behind Makeshift Wall in Gas-Filled Mine
The handwritten message found deep inside the smoke-blackened mine offered rescuers one last reason to hope: “Twenty men are in this room.” For days back…
7 Halloween Merrymakers Killed When Train Smashed Into Truck in New Jersey
Halloween night should have ended with laughter, music, and masqueraders returning home with stories to tell. Instead, for a truckload of Philadelphians traveling through southern…
