The Most Important Events That Changed History Forever

Dred Scott Decision (1857)

The Dred Scott decision, also known as Dred Scott v. Sandford, was a landmark decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court which determined that the Constitution did not uphold rights or citizenship for Black people. Scott was an enslaved Black man whose owners had taken him from a slave state to a state where slavery was illegal; he sued for his freedom in court once his owners returned him to Missouri. The rulings were voided by the Thirteenth Amendment, and the decision has been universally denounced as the worst in Supreme Court history.

The Disappearance of Amelia Earhart (1937)

Amelia Earhart was the first female pilot to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. On the morning of July 2, 1937, Earheart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, New Guinea, prepared to complete the final leg of their historic trip around the globe. Sadly, the pair never made it to their next destination, nor were they ever heard from again. Many conspiracies have surfaced since Earheart's disappearance, none of which have been founded.

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The More You Know

  • Both volleyball and basketball were invented in Massachusetts.
  • The majority of polar bears live in Canada—not in the Arctic.
  • China owns all the pandas in the world.
  • The television was invented only two years after the invention of sliced bread.
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Post originally appeared on Upbeat News.