In July 1947, something crashed on the Foster Ranch in New Mexico. What that object was, what the government said it was, and what the public thought it could be has created a near-mythical confusion that has lasted ever since.In the summer of 1947, something crashed on the Foster Ranch in south-central New Mexico. The site was about 30 miles southeast of the small town of Corona, but it was 75 miles northwest of the larger town that gave this event its name: the Roswell incident.

At 3'7'', Eddie Gaedel's baseball career was about as short as he was. Bettmann / ContributorEddie Gaedel, a 3-foot-7 inch person, takes his famous at-bat on August 19, 1951 for Bill Veeck’s St. Louis Browns. For a guy less than four feet tall, Eddie Gaedel made quite the splash when he made his Major League debut. Though he only went to bat once in his life and his story doesn’t have a happy ending — his one day in a St.

More than a century after two British ships vanished during their quest to find the Northwest Passage, a series of icy corpses discovered on a remote Canadian island revealed the fate of the missing crews.On May 19, 1845, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror set sail from England. The ships, commanded by Sir John Franklin, were on a mission to discover the elusive Northwest Passage. But then the ships disappeared, launching a mystery that endured for over a century.

DNA evidence suggests that a Polish immigrant named Aaron Kosminski who was working as a hairdresser in London's Whitechapel district in 1888 may have been the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper.Perhaps the most infamous serial killer in history, Jack the Ripper has captivated true crime enthusiasts for generations. In particular, the question of his identity has remained compelling for nearly 150 years. Many suspects have been proposed, but because the Whitechapel murder took place all the way back in 1888, there’s little concrete evidence to go on.

What happened on this day in history: Richard Nixon is born in 1913, Steve Jobs introduces the first iPhone in 2007, and more.1431: Joan Of Arc’s Trial Begins The trial of Joan of Arc begins in Rouen, France. Driven by “divine instruction,” Joan had supported the claim of Charles VII to the French throne. But the English captured her in 1430, accused her of heresy, found her guilty, and burned her at the stake on May 30.