From Sea to Shining C-SPAN
In 1919, a massive storage tank in this U.S. city burst, sending a wave of molasses through the streets and killing 21 people.
What is Boston?
This ancient Roman city was destroyed by Vesuvius and archaeologists have found graffiti there complaining about everything from politics to bad neighbors.
What is Pompeii?
This election ended in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr that was ultimately decided by the House of Representatives.
What is the Presidential Election of 1800?
This 1861 convention is considered a key step toward the creation of the new state of West Virginia.
What is the Wheeling Convention?
In 1912, this famous Olympic athlete competed in the pentathlon and decathlon, only to have his medals stripped because he had previously played semi-professional baseball.
Who is Jim Thorpe?
This future president was once attacked by a woman wielding a cane after she became angry that he wouldn't lend her money. He reportedly didn't fight back.
Who is Abraham Lincoln?
In 1926, a man named Victor Lustig famously sold this Paris landmark—not once, but twice—by convincing buyers that it was going to be demolished.
What is the Eiffel Tower?
This 17th-century English document declared that the king could not suspend laws, levy taxes without Parliament, or maintain an army in peacetime without parliamentary consent.
What is the English Bill of Rights?
This West Virginia governor declared martial law three separate times during the violent Paint Creek–Cabin Creek coal strike of 1912–13.
Who is William E. Glasscock?
In 1932, the Australian military went to war against a massive population of this bird destroying crops in Western Australia. The birds proved remarkably tactical and evaded defeat, leading the military to retreat.
What are emus?
In 1816, this U.S. political party held what became its final presidential nominating convention, effectively marking the end of organized national opposition to the Democratic-Republicans.
What is the Federalist Party?
This year became known as the “Year Without a Summer” after volcanic activity caused snow, frost, and crop failures across parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
What is 1816?
In 1965, this U.S. Supreme Court case established that married couples have a constitutional right to use contraception.
What is Griswold v. Connecticut?
This steamboat disaster occurred on the Ohio River near Moundsville in 1882 when this overloaded steamboat collided with the John Lomas.
What is the Scioto?
For several minutes in 1876, chunks of raw meat inexplicably rained down over a town in this state; a phenomenon scientists later attributed to vultures regurgitating their meals mid-flight.
What is Kentucky?
In 1919, this group of African American soldiers became known by this nickname after serving with distinction under French command during World War I.
Who are the Harlem Hellfighters?
In 897, the Catholic Church put this dead pope on trial, dressing his corpse in papal robes and placing it on a throne.
Who is Pope Formosus?
In 1912, this U.S. political party was formed by supporters of a former president who wanted to challenge his own successor, resulting in the party's iconic animal becoming a third-party political symbol.
What is the Bull Moose Party?
In November 1966, two young couples reported seeing a large, winged creature with glowing red eyes near this Mason County town, launching one of West Virginia's most famous legends.
What is Point Pleasant?
In 1989, the Soviet Union traded a fleet of 17 submarines, a cruiser, a frigate, and a destroyer to this American soda company just to keep importing their soft drink.
What is Pepsi?
In 1797, American diplomats sent to negotiate with France were approached by intermediaries demanding a large payment before negotiations could begin, leading to an undeclared naval conflict.
What is the XYZ Affair?
In 1618, Protestant nobles in this kingdom threw two Catholic officials out of a castle window, an event that helped ignite the Thirty Years' War.
What is the Defenestration of Prague?
In 1974, Portugal experienced a military coup led by junior officers who called themselves the Armed Forces Movement, eventually overthrowing a dictatorship that had ruled for decades. The revolution became famous for the flowers placed in soldiers' rifles.
What is the Carnation Revolution?
Built in 1976, and located on the Monogahela River this fort served as a refuge from Native American war parties on the western frontier of Colonial Virginia.
What is Prickett's Fort?
President Charles D.B. King won re-election by a landslide 234,000 votes, earning a spot in the Guinness World Records for the most fraudulent election because the country only had this many registered voters.
What is 15,000?