He is the first and only major league baseball player to be fatally injured at the plate.

A typhoon destroyed Kublai Khan's fleet of more than 4000 ships and 140,000 men. Next to D-Day, this was the largest naval invasion force ever assembled.

One of history’s more colorful characters was attacked by pirates on this day.

In 1913 a German acrobat named Otto Witte was crowned King of Albania...or so he claimed.

The quagga was a subspecies of the plains zebra. The species went extinct in 1883, but there's a controversial effort to breed it back into existence.

In 1909 a wireless operator named T.D. Haubner sent the first SOS call from an American steamship. The incident happened off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

Today we celebrate the King of the Cats.

Nature’s slowest artist works in ways we’ve barely known.

From a speck in amber, science takes a leap.

Otto Lilienthal, the aviation pioneer, was the first person to successfully design, build and fly a working hang glider.

Josef Carl Engressia, Jr made a huge name for himself as one of the pioneers in the world of Phone Phreaks.

In 1679, French explorer Robert de La Salle set sail on a 45-ton barque called Le Griffon. It became the first sailing ship to cross Lake Erie and Lake Huron.

In 1628, Johannes Junius, the Mayor of Bamberg was burned alive for being a witch. He was one of hundreds of people who were executed in Germany as part of the infamous Bamberg witch trials.

Jeanne Calment lived for 122 years. Hers is the longest verified human life on record.

For 13 bloody years, Jeanne de Clisson used her Black Fleet to wreak havoc on French ships in the English Channel.