From the Bowery Boys website:

"Millions of years of space rocks, fossils, artifacts and specimens are housed in New York's world famous natural history complex on the Upper West Side. But few know the whole story about the museum itself.

Residents of New York tried a few times to establish a legitimate natural history venue in the city, including an aborted plan for a Central Park dinosaur pavilion. With the American Museum of Natural History, the city had a premier institution that sent expeditions to the four corners of the earth.

Tune in to hear the stories of some of the museum's most treasured artifacts and the origins of its collection. And find out the tragic tale of Minik the Eskimo, a boy subject by museum directors to bizarre and cruel lie."

From the Library of Congress website:

"Maurice Hamonneau, a French legionnaire and the last survivor of an artillery attack near Verdun in the First World War, lay wounded and unconscious for hours after the battle. When he regained his senses, he found that a copy of the 1913 French pocket edition of Kim by Rudyard Kipling had deflected a bullet and saved his life by a mere twenty pages."

This short video tells the story of Maurice and, more importantly, the novel that saved his life.

From the Kansas State Historical Society website:

"Imagine a world in which the living commune with the dead. Most people today find that a bizarre concept, but 100 years ago it was a fun pastime for the Wichita family who used this Ouija board.

Behind-the-scenes: Staff members describe creepy artifacts in our collection."

From the Kansas State Historical Society website:

"J.P. Morgan was a powerful man who held vast wealth and controlled finance and transportation around the United States. Should one man be so powerful? Political cartoonist Albert Reid didn't think so, and expressed his distaste in this antitrust cartoon."

In this podcast by the Kansas Museum of History, the curators examine a satchel that once belonged to Census Taker John Bissell. The podcast also discusses the procedure for census recording in the early 20th century and how it has evolved into our modern mail-in census form.

From the Kansas State Historical Society:

"There are many symbols for the United States. Perhaps the strongest national personification is the character known around the world as "Uncle Sam." This military recruiting poster has been widely reproduced and caricatured since World War I."

In this podcast by the Kansas Museum of History, museum curators use a rather vicious-looking hammer as a spring board to discuss the (literal) saloon-smashing crusade of Carry Nation.

From the Kansas State Historical Society website:

"In honor of Memorial Day, we consider a service flag that was proudly displayed by a Kansas family during World War I. Their son was serving his country 'over there'."

From the Kansas State Historical Society website:

"We think nothing of jumping in the car no matter what the weather, but a century ago open cars and dirt roads made it difficult to look good after a drive. This motoring coat and goggles protected early-day road warriors from the elements."

From the Bowery Boys website:

"During the construction of a downtown federal administration building, an extraordinary find was discovered—the remnants of a burial ground used by African slaves during the 18th Century.

In the earliest days of New Amsterdam, the first Africans were brought against their will to help build the new Dutch port, slaves for a city that would be built upon their backs. Later, forced to repress the cultural expressions of their forefathers, the early black population of British New York did preserve their heritage in the form of burial rites, in a small 'Negro Burial Ground' to the south of Collect Pond (and just a couple short blocks to today's City Hall).

How did this small plot of land&#8212:and its astounding contents—become preserved in the middle of the most bustling area of the most bustling city in the world? And why is it considered one of the most spectacular archaelogical finds in New York City history?"