The Finney County Historical Museum in Garden City, KS, contains a boot worn during a notorious murder that shook a small town to its core and inspired an American literary masterpiece by one of the nation’s most celebrated writers, Truman Capote.
In Cold Blood
On November 16, 1959, 15-year-old Nancy Clutter and her mother, father and brother were bound with rope and shot to death inside their home in Holcomb, KS. After plotting for months to rob the Clutters, the men became enraged when a safe wasn’t found in the farmhouse.
Moon Runners
The Georgia Racing Hall of Fame in Dawsonville, GA, displays a polished car that reveals the mischievous beginning of a mainstream pastime, when cars just like the one on display were souped-up for more than just speed.
Moon Runners
This car pictured above belonged to 19-year-old Raymond Parks who was responsible for running one of the largest bootlegging operations in the South after the end of Prohibition.
Civil War Prostitutes
At the height of industrial prosperity in the 1860s, the small town of Smokey Row -- a known area for area in Nashville, TN -- became the location of one of the worst venereal disease outbreaks in US history, leading to the first professional pimp to license prostitutes after weekly exams.
Civil War Prostitutes
National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, MD, has in its collection a glass vial filled with one of the most sought-after treatments of the 19th century, which snuffed out a debilitating epidemic of venereal disease.
Toxic Lady
The Discovery Center at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA, has in its collection a dossier documenting a case that paralyzed a local hospital, baffling doctors and scientists for years. This toxic medical mystery took an emergency room by storm, spreading panic in its wake.
Toxic Lady
In February of 1994, 30-year-old Gloria Ramirez was admitted to the emergency room in Riverside, CA. But when doctors and nurses starting passing out due to the garlic odor coming from the patient's mouth, Dr. Patrick Grant stepped in and determined the actual cause: a chemical reaction with the patient’s cancer medication.
Art Hoax
The Charles E. Young Research Library at the University of California-Los Angeles has within its walls a colorful canvas that hides an artful truth. Once regarded as the trailblazing work of an up-and-coming talent, the piece had a hidden agenda.
Art Hoax
If you were a fan of fine art in the 1920s, Chicago was definitely the place to be. After his wife failed as an artist, writer Paul Jordan Smith decided to see if he could fool the art world with an elaborate hoax.
Fall of the Berlin Wall
Located in Culver City, CA, the Wende Museum has in its collection a small rubber stamp that possessed the power to transform people’s lives, representing the difference between oppression and freedom.
Fall of the Berlin Wall
On November 9, 1989, Harold Jaeger was standing his post at the Berlin Wall in an attempt to keep people from defecting communist East Berlin for democratic West Berlin. And with one brave decision by one brave soldier, the Berlin Wall came crashing down.
