Ellen Ochoa became the first Latina to venture into space in 1993 — then became director of NASA mission control in 2012. NASAOchoa in her space suit, ready for her last mission in 2002. In 1961, Soviet astronaut Yuri Gagarin made history as the first person to travel into space and complete one full orbit of the Earth. A full two decades later, Ellen Ochoa added her name to that same history book as the first Hispanic woman to complete a nine-day space mission as a member of the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1993.

He participated in an infamous massacre of Union soldiers, but when he got to write his own story, Jesse James cast himself as the Robin Hood of the Wild West.While Jesse James is often the first man to come to mind when reducing the idea of the Old West to an individual, his image of being a hero is just a myth. Perhaps it is fitting that the mythic idea of Jesse James as a gunslinging frontier vigilante should represent the imaginary idea of the American Frontier as depicted in Hollywood.

Scientists analyzed samples of fossil pollen from across Europe to estimate the death toll of the Black Plague and found evidence of a dramatic population decline in only seven of the 21 regions studied.Wikimedia CommonsThough previous estimates said 50 million, new research says the experts have been very wrong about how many people died from the Black Plague. We often imagine the Black Death as a terrible tidal wave that consumed Europe, killing an estimated 50 million people.

Source: Flickr While some may think of Italy as the epicenter of the world’s coffee addiction, the world’s most popular drug arrived to Europe fairly late in history. In fact, coffee was born in Ethiopia. Both the arabica and robusta varieties have their origins there. Today, around 5,000 varieties of arabica grow in Ethiopia, more than in any other country on earth. One of the most charming stories of the human discovery of the caffeine-rich beans originates from Ethiopia, too.

Diagnosed with throat cancer in 1998, six years after he was sentenced to life in prison, John Gotti died from the disease on June 10, 2002 at the age of 61.New York Daily NewsThe New York Daily News reporting on John Gotti’s death in 2002. John Gotti’s death in 2002 marked the end of a long life of crime. The mobster was infamous for leading one of the most powerful Mafia families in American history, but his misdeeds started long before he became known as the “Teflon Don.