In June of 1865 the CSS Shenandoah, a Confederate ship, continued to pursue and attack Union whalers in the Bering Sea despite the Civil War being officially over.

During Prohibition bootleggers filtered industrial alcohol in order to remove poisonous additives, only to see the government react by increasing the levels of poison, thus creating an epidemic of alcohol poisoning.

In 1943 President Roosevelt allowed the formation of a combat unit comprising mostly of interned Japanese-Americans which would later distinguish itself in combat in France and Italy.

In 1859 farmer Lyman Cutler discovered a pig gorging itself on his potatoes so he shot it. The sequence of events that would follow would bring the United States and Great Britain to the edge of war.

Unbelievably, a photo of Jewish Latvian immigrant Hessy Levininsons Taft made its way to the cover of a Nazi propaganda magazine.

In a long-forgotten passage from civil rights history, Elizabeth Jennings fought for her and other "colored persons'" rights to ride streetcars in New York City after she had been thrown off of one in July 1854.

Host Joe Moniaci takes a peek into a long-forgotten bomb shelter in New York's Brooklyn Bridge.

At the height of the Cold War the US decides to construct a nuclear missile base under the ice sheet of Greenland, without anticipating an unfortunate consequence.

Amid the tension and competition of the space race the Soviet Union attempted to steal America's thunder by landing a probe on the moon at the same time as the Apollo 11 landing.

You may know that Coca-Cola actually started out with its main selling point being that of its cocaine content, but did you know that the drink still uses coca leaves?

Black Tom Island, a major munitions depot in NY Harbor was the scene of a massive explosion in July of 1916 that was originally blamed on lit smudge pots.

Before copyright laws lyricists and musicians freely took popular tunes and used them for their own purposes, as Francis Scott Key did with the popular British drinking song The Anacreontic Song.

In a long-forgotten passage from civil rights history, Elizabeth Jennings fought for her and other "colored persons'" rights to ride streetcars in New York City after she had been thrown off of one in July 1854.

Arising from his background of having been an underdog, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya takes on and supports a multitude of terrorist causes around the world.

It's claimed that as Sergey Kirov, head of the Communist Party in Leningrad, became more and more popular Stalin had him assassinated and used this as a pretext to purge his political rivals.

As he demonstrated with one particular dissident, Mao uses violence and intimidation to craft a sort of toolkit of terror in order to establish himself as the unchallenged leader of a nascent Communist China.

Mussolini leaves no room for opposition in his bloody quest to create a new Roman empire.

Bin Laden becomes a heroic figure on the battlefield setting him up to become a leader of militant Muslims.

Despite being in high positions within the North Korean hierarchy Kim Jong-il has those who question his suitability to succeed his father murdered.

After recovering from a heart attack that left him unconscious for 9 hours and with possible neurological damage, Haiti's Francois Duvalier became more paranoid, erratic and repressive.

As Andrew Carnegie's steelmaking operation at Carnegie Steel in Homestead, PA grew more and more modern and efficient labor conditions deteriorated, which led to the Homestead Steel Strike and differing opinions on how to deal with it.

A crucial split would occur between John D. Rockefeller and Pennsylvania Railroad chief Thomas Scott over pricing for the transportation of crude oil for Rockefeller's refineries in Pittsburgh.

Having fulfilled a very difficult project for the Edison Company Nikola Tesla is outraged to discover that Thomas Edison had no intention of paying him a reward that Tesla had understood he was to receive for the completion of the task.

Cornelius Vanderbilt and Daniel Drew were railroad giants vying for control of the Erie Railroad. Drew resorts to insider trading to thwart Vanderbilt's plans.

Journalists aren't supposed to insert themselves into the news but that didn't stop Hearst and Pulitzer from doing so.

William Clark and Marcus Daly battle to determine the location of Montana's state capital, Helena or Anaconda.

In 1932 Rear Admiral Harry Yarnell mounted a simulated attack on Pearl Harbor utilizing carrier-based airplanes to expose how vulnerable it was to a carrier-borne attack. The Japanese took notice.

Such were his powers of organization and logistics, Dwight Eisenhower was always kept away from combat because he made others better and more well-prepared for it.