Politics

Abraham Lincoln is the only U.S. president to hold a patent, granted in 1849 for a way to lift riverboats over shallow water. Winston Churchill escaped a prisoner-of-war camp by hiding on freight trains. Susan B. Anthony voted in 1872, was arrested, and refused to pay her $100 fine. Walter Ulbricht denied any plan for the Berlin Wall weeks before it went up. Indira Gandhi got the top job because party bosses thought she was weak. Other stories cover the ideas behind power and rights.

• Mahatma GandhiOn the day India won freedom, Gandhi refused to celebrate. He fasted and spun cloth in Calcutta, pleading for peace.

  13 min
• Watergate scandalA botched burglary at Watergate led to the first resignation of a U.S. president. In all, 69 people were charged.

  15 min
• John F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy spent hours in the water towing a burned crewman after a destroyer cut his boat in half.

  16 min
• Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down, and he was careful never to be seen in his wheelchair.

  15 min
• Abraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln is the only U.S. president to hold a patent. In 1849 he patented a way to lift riverboats.

  12 min
• Barack ObamaObama rejected a plan to bomb a compound in Pakistan and sent Navy SEALs instead. The 2011 raid killed Osama bin Laden.

  14 min
• Winston ChurchillWinston Churchill escaped a prisoner-of-war camp in Pretoria by hiding on freight trains. It made him famous.

  18 min
• PoliticsIs politics closer to ethics or to raw power? Thinkers from Plato to Machiavelli disagreed sharply.

  9 min
• Elizabeth IElizabeth I came to the throne as a declared bastard whose mother had been executed.

  16 min
• Indira GandhiParty bosses chose Indira Gandhi as prime minister because they thought she was weak.

  10 min
• Susan B. AnthonySusan B. Anthony voted in 1872, waited, and was arrested days later. She then refused to pay her $100 fine.

  15 min
• Diplomatic missionAn embassy is usually not the sovereign territory of the country it represents. Only a minority of countries grant it.

  7 min
• International relationsThe first professorship in international relations was created in 1919 in Wales.

  14 min
• Marie AntoinetteMarie Antoinette stepped on her executioner's shoe and apologized. Minutes later she was beheaded.

  10 min
• I Have a DreamMahalia Jackson called out from behind King, and he left his script during "I Have a Dream."

  11 min
• Berlin WallWeeks before the Berlin Wall went up, Walter Ulbricht said no one intended to build one.

  13 min
• Frederick DouglassFrederick Douglass never knew his birthday, so he picked February 14. His mother had called him her Little Valentine.

  13 min
• Human rightsThe Cold War split the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into two separate treaties.

  12 min
• Cuban Missile CrisisIn October 1962, a US spy plane pilot was shot down over Cuba by Soviet missiles.

  12 min