The First: Stories of Inventions and their Consequences

Dorothy Catherine Draper is a truly forgotten figure in American history. She was the first woman to ever sit for a phot... Read more

American eating habits were transformed in the early 20th century with innovations in freezing and refrigeration, allowi... Read more

The Pledge of Allegiance feels like an American tradition that traces itself back to the Founding Fathers, but, in fact,... Read more

You may know the story of Alexander Graham Bell and his world famous invention. You may know that Bell made the very fir... Read more

Benjamin Franklin did more in his first forty years than most people do in an entire lifetime. Had he not played a pivot... Read more

There is something very, very bizarre about a can of soda.  How did this sugary, bubbly beverage – dark brown, or neon o... Read more

The art of tattooing is as old as written language but it would require the contributions of a few 19th century New York... Read more

The Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla is known as one of the fathers of electricity, the curious genius behind alternating c... Read more

Of the tens of thousands of U.S. patents granted in the 19th century, only a small fraction were held by women. One of t... Read more

This is the story of the first vaccine, perhaps one of the greatest inventions in modern human history. Starring -- a co... Read more