47 Miners Found Alive After Four Days Trapped Underground in West Virginia
For four days, rescuers searched the wrecked Layland Mine in West Virginia believing that nearly everyone trapped below had perished. The gas explosion had devastated...
Strange Ago
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Ohio Woman Sentenced After Burning Child With Red-Hot Poker
A 10-year-old Ohio girl suffered horrific punishment at the hands of the woman who was supposed to care for her. In 1909, Mrs. Joseph Sager...
3-Day-Old Baby Found Abandoned on Cold Floor at Washington’s Union Station
A three-day-old baby girl was found abandoned on the cold marble floor of a restroom at Washington’s Union Station in January 1930. The infant, dressed...
80-Year-Old Virginia Man Leaped Into Well to Escape Fire
When 80-year-old John Woodyard saw his Virginia sawmill catch fire in the summer of 1924, he tried to save it alone, carrying bucket after bucket...
Robbed After Pawn Shop Customer Asked to See How the Bullets Fit Into a Revolver
A San Antonio pawnbroker learned the hard way in 1928 that some customers should never be allowed to test the merchandise too thoroughly. A young...
Indiana Man Kills One Brother, Wounds Another, Then Refuses to Speak
A 70-year-old Indiana man sat silently in a jail cell in April 1928 after a street shooting left one man dead and his brother critically...
North Dakota Lawmakers Saved a Convicted Killer From the Gallows in 1915
Joseph Milo had already been sentenced to hang when North Dakota lawmakers changed his fate. In March 1915, the state legislature passed a measure abolishing...
Man Found Unconscious in New Jersey Home With Chilling Message on Mirror
When 60-year-old William Henderson was found unconscious inside his Long Branch, New Jersey, home in March 1922, police initially believed he had suffered a stroke....
Strange Businesses Once Found on the Streets of New York City
At the turn of the 20th century, New York City offered just about any service a person could imagine, along with quite a few that...
Advertisers Urged to Give Away Drinking Cups To Stop Sharing
In the early 1900s, public health officials were trying to convince Americans to abandon one of the most ordinary, and potentially unsanitary, habits of daily...
Teen Dies After Explosion Erupts in His Mouth During Routine Surgery
A routine operation for a broken jaw turned horrifying in a London hospital in 1925. Sixteen-year-old Laurence Sims was under anesthesia while surgeons worked to...
A Mysterious Fire Appeared on Lake St. Clair and Vanished Without a Trace
Lake St. Clair is a hotspot for UFO and USO sightings, so when I found this article from 1922, I instantly perked up. Residents along...
Pennsylvania Hunter Tripped a Hidden Wire in the Woods and Triggered a Homemade Gun
A walk through the woods turned disastrous for a Pennsylvania hunter in December 1920 when he stumbled across a hidden wire stretched across a path....
Two Philadelphia Policemen Faced Charges After Thieves Made Off With a Store Safe
A safe sitting beneath bright electric lights and plainly visible from the street might seem like an obvious target for thieves. In Philadelphia in December...
North Carolina Man Couldn’t Hear the Passenger Train Coming Behind Him
J. I. Costner likely thought he was stepping out of danger when he moved from one railroad track to another. The 65-year-old North Carolina hotel...
Doctors Believed Cancer Could Linger in Houses and Infect New Residents
At the beginning of the 20th century, doctors were still trying to understand what caused cancer, and some of the theories now sound deeply unsettling....
Cats Once Saved the Brooklyn Navy Yard Thousands of Dollars by Hunting Rats
At the turn of the 20th century, the Brooklyn Navy Yard had a rat problem so severe that traps, poison, and even dogs had failed...
Connecticut Buck Charged Railroad Camp and Sent 100 Workers Running
A railroad construction camp near Greystone, Connecticut, was thrown into chaos when a buck burst from the woods and charged straight at the workers. The...
Lightning Struck Two Hunters’ Shotguns and Blew the Barrels Apart
Two California hunters were caught in a storm in 1901 when a flash of lightning turned their shotguns into explosives. R. Cutlar and E. McClarnon...
Baby Found Inside Arlington Cemetery Was Buried Among Unknown Soldiers
In March 1927, a disturbing discovery was made just inside the walls of Arlington Cemetery. A truck driver working at the cemetery found the body...