Topic: Curiosities
Washington's first World's Fair -- the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition -- was held in Seattle on the grounds of the University of Washington campus between June 1 and October 16, 1909, and drew more t...
The "spectator sport" of bear wrestling is an ancient, if disturbing, one that is still practiced in only a few nations. In America, the man-vs.-bear spectacle became a fad among beered-up tavern patr...
World War II army veterans M. Leo Bradshaw (1916-1993) and Earl Leonard Irwin (1909-1973) opened the B&I Sales Company, an army surplus store located in Lakewood in southern Pierce County, in 1945...
An old-growth cedar tree near Snohomish gained a measure of fame after 1890 when a local logger was hired to cut a pathway through its massive trunk, allowing people to walk, bike, or ride a hors...
Bobo the gorilla entertained visitors to the Great Ape House at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle for 15 years. He was a mainstay attraction for both young and old. A somewhat grumpy gorilla, Bobo love...
Bobo (1951-1968) was a beloved gorilla who for 15 years entertained visitors to the Great Ape House at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo. Before moving to the zoo, Bobo lived with a human family. Bobo's hum...
In his famous, possibly apocryphal, speech of 1854, Chief Seattle is said to have warned his new neighbors that "the dead are not altogether powerless." There have been numerous reports of ghosts and ...
Daylight saving in Washington has a long and contentious history, shaped by conflict between urban and rural interests. Its history is marked by many local referendums and three hotly debated, statewi...
When someone refuses to sell property while everyone around her does, it is known as a holdout. In China, holdout houses that remain while developments are built around them are called "dingzihu" or "...
Hunter Brown (1992-2017) wrote this account of locating and then traveling to the site of Cherry Grove, Illinois. Cherry Grove was the town the Denny/Boren family left behind in April 1851 when they s...
The modern phenomena of UFOs and "flying saucers" began in Washington state on June 24, 1947, when Kenneth Arnold spotted nine mysterious, high-speed objects "flying like a saucer would" along the cre...
This essay contains selected email queries received by HistoryLink concerning Rose Red, an ABC-TV mini-series which aired in January 2002 and was based on a story concept by Stephen King and a related...