Laudanum, the "mother's little helper" of the 19th century, was a mixture of alcohol and opium. Since at least 1821, when the book Confessions of an English Opium Eater had described its charms and also the chains of the drug, it was known that it could be hard to break a reliance on the mixture. Yet, with little else that worked so well to relieve pain, it was freely prescribed to women throughout the 19th century. With the adoption of the syringe in 1853 the miracle morphine could dull any distress. Eugene O'Neill's mother Ella's addiction began with laudanum and morphine administered after a difficult childbirth. Her son's play, Long Day's Journey Into Night, tells of her long struggle to free herself from it.

Women also gave it to their children to help them teeth and help them sleep, and some did so permanently.

Few who tune into the WTTG television station in Washington, DC know that the letters refer to a real person. Thomas T. Goldsmith was an engineer for the DuMont television network. Its founder Allen DuMont was the technology hero of his day: in 1937, he began making the first cathode ray tubes that didn't burn out, which made television sets commercially viable. The era of "the tube" had begun. In 1946, his fledgling DuMont network demonstrated what TV could do, showing General Eisenhower laying a wreath on Lincoln's memorial to viewers in New York.

In 1947, DuMont employee Goldsmith patented a Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device, or the world's first electronic game, but it was never manufactured.

In the fight for black Americans to receive their full rights as citizens, Frank Sinatra isn't the first name that comes to mind. But he  firmly and publicly objected to racial discrimination well before the movement to end segregation got going. He wouldn't play a club that didn't admit all races, and he insisted his band be integrated. In 1955, the Las Vegas Sands had let Nat King Cole stay, but not eat in the restaurant. Sinatra found out and invited him to dinner. With his clout as a headliner, he helped fellow performer Sammy Davis Jr. break the racial barrier that limited black access to casinos.

In 1961, as the civil rights movement was getting going, Sinatra played Carnegie Hall to benefit Martin Luther King Jr, and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

When you start with Absolute Perfection, where do you go from there? On to the longest running advertising campaign in history, and one of the most successful. Absolut Vodka's ads of the 1980s and beyond were not only a success for their brand, but for all vodka. The memorable formula of "one bottle, two words, and a little bit of wit" helped increase Absolute sales from 10,000 cases to many millions over its 25-year run, but it also helped make vodka the largest selling spirit in the US. Success attracted new luxury brands: as of 2015, brands more expensive than Absolute sell better.

Andy Warhol kicked the campaign into high gear in 1986 with the first of its artist-created ads. He did say "good business is the best art."

It was a spectacle, what Las Vegas was beginning to be famous for in 1951. Mushroom clouds offered a unique view in an otherwise plain desert landscape. Atomic fallout was all in a day's work for Chamber of Commerce publicity photographer Donald English, who created showgirl ballet in the desert to show off the charms of the town. He took Sally McCloskey up to Angel's Peak, where there was a view of the bomb tests, to perform what Parade magazine called Angel's Dance. Four of her poses were apprehension, impact, awe and survival.

Don English also created other iconic photos of bombs and bombshells, like Miss Atomic Bomb, Lee Merlin.

Molasses turned murderous one January day in 1919 on the Boston waterfront. A tank of viscous brown liquid suddenly burst, hurling more than 2 million gallons of the sticky sweet stuff into town. This molasses wasn't slow: it moved at 35 miles an hour, trapping people and animals, killing 21 and injuring more. Structures in its path were splintered. The company said an anarchists' bomb must be to blame; others said the molasses had fermented and exploded on its own. Most likely the disaster was due to shoddy construction. The tank had leaked from the start, providing locals with a free treat.

For decades a faint, sweet scent still lingered in Boston's North End.

On November 7th, 1876, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes went to bed believing he had lost the presidential election. Almost 300,000 more people had voted for his opponent, Democrat Samuel Tilden. But Tilden was one vote short in the electoral college, while Hayes was 20 votes away from a win. The fight over those 20 votes lasted for months: Republicans said Tilden votes in disputed southern states were the result of fraud. The election was decided by a commission of 15: five Senators, Representatives, and Supreme Court Justices. On the eve of the inauguration, they awarded all 20 votes to Hayes.

Republicans had made a deal: they agreed to end the post Civil War federal oversight of the south called Reconstruction. The southern Democrats were then able to halt the participation of former slaves in government and society with "Jim Crow" laws.

Although Mount Rushmore was completed in 1941, it was dedicated fifty years later, by President George H. W. Bush on July 3, 1991. This last dedication was for the work as a whole, which hadn't happened in spite of six earlier dedications. The first dedication took place in 1925, after the site was selected. Another dedication by President Calvin Coolidge followed on August 10, 1927, also taking place before work on the sculptures had begun. After each of the four sculptures was completed, a dedication ceremony took place.

Charles E. Rushmore, a New York lawyer, became associated with the granite peak, otherwise known as Slaughterhouse Rock, in the late 1880s, when he was a frequent visitor to the area. Before that the Lakota Sioux called it the Six Grandfathers.