Category: U.S. Historical News
Smoke Poured From Pittsburgh’s Western Penitentiary Windows
Shortly before one o’clock in the afternoon, emergency calls rang out from Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first reports were alarming enough: prisoners had…
Headless Body Mystery Baffles Missouri Officers
Near Patton, not far from Cape Girardeau, the headless body of 30-year-old John Zoubeck was found in December 1926. At first, the circumstances raised more…
A Lonely Georgia Highway, A Murdered Educator, and the Swift Execution That Shocked Milledgeville
It started as a simple act of kindness on a lonely Georgia highway. In March 1925, Professor William C. Wright pulled his car over to…
Mystery Light Over Washington Revealed
For a time, Washington, D.C., had a mystery hanging over it. In the western sky, residents saw a strange light that seemed to take the…
Headless Bodies Found in Pennsylvania’s Murder Marsh
They called it “murder marsh,” and by October of 1925, the name seemed horribly earned. In the swampy ground between Newcastle Junction and West Pittsburgh,…
Landgraff Flood Aftermath Reveals Two Bodies
In Landgraff, West Virginia, the work of recovery after a flood was still underway when two bodies were found caught in a drift pile, tangled…
Lake Sailor Found Dead in Binghamton Box Car
A freight car can feel like a forgotten place, a dark wooden box shunted from one track to another, carrying no one’s attention with it….
Silver Spring Tornado Leaves Families Homeless
On April 5, 1923, a violent storm tore through Silver Spring and Sligo, Maryland, leaving behind a strange and terrifying trail of destruction. Houses were…
Japanese Forces Use Electrified Fences Against Head Hunters
Some old newspaper articles are strange because of what they describe. Others are disturbing because of the casual way they describe it. This 1908 report…
Wilkes-Barre Mine Cave-In Destroyed Homes in Five Points
In the bitter cold of a January morning in 1883, the people of Wilkes-Barre’s Five Points neighborhood were jolted awake by a sound like an…
