Browsing: Forgotten Knowledge

The Great American Camel Experiment

Long before highways and railroads, the U.S. Army bet on camels to tame the Wild West.

In the mid-1800s, as the United States expanded westward, the vast arid deserts of the Southwest posed a serious challenge to transportation and military logistics. Horses and mules struggled in the punishing heat and endless stretches without water. In a surprising twist largely forgotten by history, the U.S. Army decided to solve this problem by importing camels and sent them to traverse the American wilderness.

The idea first took root in 1836, but it wasn’t until Jefferson Davis, later president of the Confederacy, became Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce in 1853 that the “camel experiment” gained real momentum.…

The Forgotten Presidential Election of 1876

The 1876 election nearly sparked a constitutional crisis, deciding the U.S. presidency through secret backroom deals.

In the waning days of the 19th century, the United States faced its most disputed presidential election. The year was 1876, and the country was still reeling from the Civil War and the turbulent period of Reconstruction. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden found themselves at the center of a political storm that would not only shape the presidency but also determine the fate of Southern states and the trajectory of civil rights for decades to come.…

The Great Hawaiian Language Ban: A Hidden Chapter

For over eighty years, it was illegal to teach Hawaiian language in schools—a policy with deep and lasting effects.

When most Americans think of Hawaii, images of beautiful beaches and a vibrant culture spring to mind, yet beneath the surface lies a little-known and painful chapter in U.S. history. Following the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 and the annexation by the United States in 1898, authorities imposed policies that nearly suppressed the Hawaiian language into extinction. In 1896, just three years after the U.S.-supported overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the Territory of Hawaii’s leaders implemented a law that prohibited Hawaiian from being taught or spoken as the medium of instruction in public schools.…

America’s Secret Army of Balloon Bomb Defenders

During World War II, thousands of Americans quietly defended the homeland from a bizarre Japanese attack that most people today have never heard about.

In the winter of 1944 and into 1945, an unusual threat floated over the United States—literally. In a little-known chapter of World War II history, the Japanese military launched over 9,000 hydrogen-filled balloons equipped with explosives, intending for the jet stream to carry them across the Pacific to North America. Their goal was to start forest fires, cause panic, and disrupt American wartime industry.

These weapons, called “Fu-Go” balloon bombs, first arrived in the forests of the western states at the end of 1944.…

The Forgotten Japanese Internment in Latin America

Thousands of Latin Americans of Japanese descent were forcibly relocated to U.S. camps during WWII, a chapter rarely taught in American schools.

When most Americans hear about the internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II, the focus is usually on the more than 120,000 Japanese Americans uprooted from their homes and detained in camps across the United States. However, far less known is another chapter of this dark period—the U.S. led internment and relocation of over 2,200 Japanese Latin Americans, a story largely hidden from mainstream history.

Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the United States government feared that people of Japanese descent throughout the Americas posed a shared threat, even beyond its own borders.…

The First Japanese Colony in America: The Yamato Colony

Long before World War II, a community of Japanese farmers braved hardship to settle in Florida, establishing a piece of Japan in the American South.

In the early 1900s, the United States saw an influx of immigrants seeking new opportunities. While many Americans are familiar with Japanese communities on the West Coast and in Hawaii, few have heard of the Yamato Colony, one of the earliest Japanese settlements in the continental U.S., founded in Florida in 1905. Its improbable history is both a testament to immigrant ambition and a forgotten chapter in America’s story.…

The “Year Without a Summer” and America’s Westward Push

In 1816, a volcanic eruption in Indonesia led to global chills and strange summers in the U.S., pushing famine, innovation, and migration westward.

In the spring and summer of 1816, Americans witnessed weather that seemed nearly apocalyptic. Frost blackened crops in June, snowflakes fell in New England during July, and ice formed on lakes and rivers as far south as Pennsylvania. Livestock starved as pastures withered, and food prices soared. What most people had no way of truly knowing at the time was that this “Year Without a Summer” was the result of one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions in recorded history, on the other side of the world.…

The Secret US Town Built by the TVA

A hidden Tennessee town, created in the 1940s, played a crucial role in both the American home front and atomic history.

In the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains lies a place few Americans know ever existed: Oak Ridge, Tennessee. In 1942, as World War II raged, the U.S. government sought a remote but accessible site to spearhead a quiet revolution in energy: the harnessing of the atom. They needed to keep their efforts away from enemy eyes—and even from most Americans. That’s when Oak Ridge came into being, not as a typical town but as a “secret city” built almost overnight by the Tennessee Valley Authority and military planners.…

Dancing Plagues: The Forgotten Crisis of 1518

In 1518, hundreds in Strasbourg were gripped by a mysterious plague that compelled them to dance for days, baffling authorities and resulting in dozens of deaths.

During the summer of 1518 in the then-Holy Roman Empire city of Strasbourg, now part of France, a bizarre phenomenon descended upon its citizens. It began when a woman known as Frau Troffea stepped onto a narrow street and began to dance uncontrollably. She showed no signs of joy or celebration but moved frenetically, seemingly unable to stop herself. Witnesses at first thought it was simple exuberance or a strange act of protest.…

The Forgotten War: America’s Invasion of Russia

Few recall that in 1918, American soldiers landed in Russia, fighting Bolsheviks for over a year in a little-known chapter of U.S. history.

As World War I drew near its close, the world was chaotic and unstable. While most remember the Western Front, or the Armistice of November 1918, almost no one knows that United States troops fought on Russian soil. In fact, at the tail end of the Great War, President Woodrow Wilson authorized two separate American military interventions in Russia, sending thousands of U.S. soldiers to Archangel in the north and Vladivostok in the far east.…

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane: Untold Heroism

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane devastated the Florida Keys, yet many Americans don’t know about the secret evacuation railroad and the forgotten veterans it was built to protect.

In early September 1935, as summer drew to a close and most Americans prepared to return to their routines, a monstrous hurricane barreled through the Atlantic, making landfall in the Florida Keys on Labor Day. Now known as the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, it remains one of the most intense storms to ever strike the United States, but the true story of its devastation—and the people it affected—is largely unknown to all but a handful of historians.…

America’s Forgotten Colony: The Story of Tabuaeran

In 1935, the U.S. secretly established a colony on a Pacific atoll, shaping aviation history and influencing WWII, yet few Americans have heard of Tabuaeran.

The vast Pacific Ocean has long posed challenges for those attempting to cross it, especially in the era before long-range aircraft. Navigation required stepping stones, small islands where planes could re-fuel and ships could dock. While most Americans know about Hawaii’s strategic role, very few have heard of a cluster of coral atolls called the Line Islands, and specifically, the forgotten U.S. colony of Tabuaeran—also known as Fanning Island.…

America’s Secret Camp of Japanese Balloon Bombs

During World War II, a little-known Japanese attack reached U.S. soil: balloon bombs quietly landed across the West, and one Colorado camp made a stand.

In the winter of 1944, strange objects began to drift silently out of the sky into the forests and fields of the western United States. These were not the familiar implements of war like planes or submarines, but rather an extraordinary and little-remembered weapon from across the Pacific Ocean: Fu-Go, or balloon bombs, launched by Japan as a bold and inventive—though largely futile—attack on American soil.

Few Americans today are aware that over 9,000 of these hydrogen-filled balloons were launched between November 1944 and April 1945.…

The Forgotten Filipino Soldiers Who Fought for the U.S.

Thousands of Filipino soldiers defended the U.S. in WWII, yet for decades were denied the benefits promised to them.

When most Americans think of World War II, the images that come to mind are typically of battlefields in Europe, American GIs storming the beaches of Normandy, or the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. Yet few realize that more than a quarter-million soldiers from the Philippines wore American uniforms and fought under the U.S. flag. Their story is a complex and often overlooked chapter in the history of the United States, marked by extraordinary bravery and a controversial legacy of unfulfilled promises.…

The Forgotten Colony of Fort Mose

Almost no Americans know that the first free black community in what is now the continental United States was established in Florida in 1738.

Long before the formation of the United States, slavery and freedom were deeply contested questions across the Atlantic world. While most people learn about early colonial settlements like Jamestown and Plymouth, much less is known about a unique community founded nearly three centuries ago just north of present-day St. Augustine, Florida: Fort Mose, the first legally sanctioned free black settlement in what would become the United States.

Fort Mose was born out of the rivalries between European colonial powers and the struggles of enslaved Africans for freedom.…

The Secret WWI Sabotage School on American Soil

Few Americans know a hidden New Jersey estate helped shape modern espionage and sabotage tactics that influenced the course of World War I.

In the dense woods of Bernardsville, New Jersey, sits what was once an ordinary country estate called Kingsland. But in 1917, as the United States prepared to enter World War I, the estate took on a far more remarkable role. The American military and the British Secret Service covertly selected Kingsland as a secret training ground to teach the art of sabotage—a pivotal response to the threat posed by Imperial Germany’s covert operations on American soil.…